£5m facelift to put York’s historic tower back on the map
Founded by William the Conqueror, it’s been a royal residence, a prison and the scene of shocking tragedy, yet few have ever heard of it. Now a huge restoration aims to make Clifford’s Tower a major tourist attraction
FROM its lofty perch overlooking York, Clifford’s Tower has witnessed centuries of British history – and sat at the very heart of moments that have shaped our nation. It has been home to kings and convicts, survived devastating fire and battles, housed a royal mint and been embroiled in unimaginable tragedy.
Yet while the tower – and the castle in which it used to sit – have played a key role in our nation’s past, not just as the seat of government for the north of England but sometimes of the whole country, few people outside York have ever heard of it.
For decades the Grade I-listed landmark has been woefully unappreciated and was once voted the city’s most disappointing tourist attraction. But now its guardian, English Heritage, is set to reopen the last remaining part of York Castle on Saturday following a £5million conservation project that has transformed the interior.
The makeover will not only give visitors a true insight into the monument’s importance and protect it for future generations, but will restore Clifford’s Tower to its rightful place as one of the nation’s great treasures.
“York Castle has almost entirely disappeared apart from the tower,” says Jeremy Ashbee, head properties curator at English Heritage. “So people don’t remember it as the place from which the North was governed and, at points, from where England was governed when great institutions of state travelled up.
“It’s architecturally unique and a place of national as well as regional importance. Some might say internationally too.”
The white limestone structure of Clifford’s Tower dates back around 800 years but the land itself has been at the heart of the York community for far longer, with Roman burial grounds unearthed there.
The city was a Viking capital in the 10th century and continued to be a seat of power when William the Conqueror made his first northern expedition there after the Norman Conquest.
The new king ordered construction of a basic wooden motte and bailey castle on the site, as it was ideally located between the Ouse and Foss rivers. By the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, it was surrounded by a water-filled moat and was known as York Castle.
It was one of dozens of castles William built to shore up his defences, including the central keep of the Tower of London.
A century later came the darkest day in York Castle’s history. By 1190, there was a thriving Jewish community in York, one of the first in Britain, introduced by the Normans to lend them money.
BUT the new arrivals were subject to considerable prejudice and tended to work from settlements under the protection of royal castles. Tensions between Christians and Jews had been increasing, in part because many people were in debt to Jewish moneylenders, when Richard I took the throne.
His announcement of his intention to join the Crusades inflamed anti-Jewish sentiment and riots followed. Violence spread to York and the local Jewish community, fearing for their lives, fled to the castle for protection. It is thought they holed up in the tower, which was surrounded by a baying mob.
But their refuge soon became their prison as a siege ensued.When troops were called in to recapture the site, the Jews’ religious leader, Rabbi Yomtob, proposed an act of collective suicide to avoid being killed or forcibly baptised.
On March 16, 1190, just before Passover, heads of families killed their wives and children before setting the castle on fire to prevent the bodies being mutilated, then turned their knives on themselves.
The few Jews that subsequently surrendered and promised to convert to Christianity were murdered by the crowd. In all, 150 people died.
This stain on the history of the nation remained a dark secret for many centuries until a memorial plaque was finally installed outside the tower in 1978. The distinctive six-pointed daffodils that bloom around the mound every spring, near the anniversary of the massacre, are a further memorial.
Jeremy says: “It is a story that is very sobering, that such a thing happened in our country, on our watch, even in the very alien Middle Ages. It is a story we have had to try to tell in a sensitive way and we are working with the Jewish community and historians to talk about this in the broader context of English history – a history with a lot of variety in it.
“The idea that everyone in England was of the same nationality and religion? There is much more diversity in it.”
After the massacre, Clifford’s Tower was hastily rebuilt in wood until Henry III, fearing an invasion by the Scots, ordered construction of a new limestone York Castle.
Work started in 1245 and took around 25 years, costing £2,600.
The two-storey keep – originally named King’s Tower – had all the medieval mod-cons, including a loo for the monarch and an ornate chapel above the gatehouse. Most distinctive of all was its four-leaf clover quatrefoil shape.
Jeremy says: “There is nothing quite like it – there are other places with stone towers on mounds but none with the four-leaf clover shape.The shape is significant, but not as you think. People used to try to find a military idea for it but it is not about that at all.
“The plan of Clifford’s Tower is nearly identical to an old castle in France – but only the plan. In 2003, I went and had a look at the castle and it is nothing like it.
“Someone clearly took that plan, thought it looked very elegant, but had to thin it down, make it much shorter and make it in an English style. I see King Henry III as a
prime motivator in this because he’s got an inferiority complex with the French but likes his creature comforts, and design and style.
“He is the king who has Westminster Abbey built in a French style at exactly the same time and almost certainly by the same mason, Master Henry.”
With its new modern structure,York Castle became the centre of power in the north, and successive kings established more national institutions there, including a mint to make gold and silver coins in 1344.
But by the time of Henry VIII, the castle was in considerable disrepair, long abandoned by royalty for more comfortable lodgings. Even prisoners incarcerated there found the conditions unbearable. At the end of the 16th century, the keep became known as Clifford’s Tower, possibly to reflect the family name of its new hereditary custodians, the Earls of Cumberland.
When the Civil War broke out, it was a key garrison for the Royalists, under the command of Henry Clifford. It survived many battles but was increasingly disliked by the locals, who nicknamed it the “minced pie”.
On St George’s Day 1684, an explosion – suspected to be sabotage – destroyed the interior and ended its military use. No one was injured in the blast but the heat of the fire turned the internal walls a slightly pink shade – the colour they remain today.
The wrecked tower passed into private hands before being incorporated into a prison and court complex. Highwayman Dick Turpin was one of the inmates there in 1739, before his execution.
The castle courtyard was replaced with a grass circle, which became known as the Eye of the Ridings (today the Eye of York), as it was used to elect MPs for York.
Later, it was a spot where prisoners were executed.
When attempts were made to use the land Clifford’s Tower stands on for further development in the 1800s, a public campaign saved it. But it remained largely hidden inside the prison walls until the last convict left in 1929.
Jeremy says: “It was a county jail and rather dark and forbidding, with an ancient monument sitting in the middle of it, making it hard for anyone to see or visit it.”
Thankfully the prison authorities had already decreed the monument should be preserved for the nation and it became a tourist attraction, as the walls around it were demolished. Famed northern artist LS Lowry depicted the view we now know today in a painting in 1952, commissioned by York Art Gallery’s annual Evelyn Award.
When English Heritage was formed in 1984 and took over guardianship, decades of discussion ensued on how to do the precious landmark justice.
Jeremy says he has “lived and breathed” Clifford’s Tower since he joined the charity in 2003, working with architects and conservationists over the last eight years to bring the ambitious new plan to life.
The project has been designed to shelter and protect the ruin, not rebuild it.
WORK finally began 18 months ago to preserve the existing building and install a completely free-standing timber structure within it, which offers panoramic views across York from a viewing platform two storeys up.
Steel walkways also enable the public to step into rooms on the first floor for the first time in centuries and layers of pollution have been cleaned away.
Bringing Clifford’s Tower’s history to life has been key and five York residents of varying ages were chosen to voice stories for visitors.
“It’s been a slow development getting us to the point of deciding what needed to be done to present this remarkable site and tell this remarkable story,” says Jeremy.
“But we have got there now and I couldn’t be more excited. I find the experience of going to the new Clifford’s Tower exhilarating.
“It used to be a place where you went for 10-15 minutes and people felt there was nothing to see.
“Now the people of York will feel proud taking visitors to the city. Isn’t that satisfying?”