Wildflower event at Fishergate Postern Tower

Friends of York Walls are hosting a wildflower event at Fishergate Postern Tower on Saturday 1 August, from 10 am to 4 pm. It's part of the Council for British Archaeology's 'Archaeology and Nature' festival and Yorkshire Day, with St Nick's coordinating.

The day is built around a five-year project the Friends are running to help wildflowers flourish on the ramparts. They're in year two of it, and the work is quite specific: they cut and remove the grass three times a year to lower the soil's nutrient content, which gives the wildflowers a better chance to take hold. On the day, you can sow wildflower seeds in recycled-newspaper pots to take home and grow yourself. There's also a display of moths caught overnight on the ramparts, so you can see what's actually flying around the walls after dark.

The venue itself is worth a look if you haven't been inside. Fishergate Postern Tower is an early Tudor tower, and its 500-year-old structure still holds its original spiral staircase and a medieval garderobe, alongside mason's marks dating back 700 years. It was built on arches because the ground was too wet to support it, and the Friends — the charity that runs the tower and the wider walls — point out that the ramparts date back 2,000 years, a significant engineering achievement in their own right. The tower's ground floor offers partial disabled access.

So, it's a morning or afternoon spent with the history of the walls on one hand and the nature that lives on them on the other. Saturday 1 August, 10 am to 4 pm, at Fishergate Postern Tower, at the junction of Piccadilly and Lead Mill Lane, York YO1 9AF.