Clifford’s Tower, York 2022
Clifford’s Tower is something I’ve seen and known about since being a child. We’ve parked in the adjacent car park, I’ve visited the museum across the way, and I’ve walked past it countless times on my many visits to the city over the years. But it’s somewhere I’d never visited. Having recently undergone a £5m renovation project, and Bertie being so interested in castles, now seemed like an ideal time to visit.
The tower stands tall and proud atop its hill, and is a landmark you can’t really miss! A small van at the bottom promoted English Heritage membership, but other than this there isn’t much commercialism around the site (plans to integrate a shop into the hillside were squashed by residents and activists). We climbed the many steps to the top (poor Brett had to carry Bertie who refused to talk!) and showed our EH passes to the lady on the desk. She asked if we were collecting the pop badges and brought out a small selection for Bertie to choose from. Pop badge attached to Bertie’s dungarees, we headed into the tower.
It was immediately obvious that the renovation money had been spent on walkways and information boards. These were impressive and interesting to read, though lacking somewhat in child-friendly content. It would have been nice to see some other boards dotted around with short, key facts and interesting pictures to capture children’s imaginations, similar to what we have seen around other sites, but sadly this was not the case.
It didn’t take long for Bertie to feel he was bored with the inside of the tower, so we climbed one of the spindly staircases to the roof. Here there were more adult-oriented information boards and places to sit to take in the view. The view was pretty spectacular, and it was impressive to think of the many years of history and how the landscape would have changed. We managed to stay up there for a good 10 minutes before Bertie’s constant running to the edge got the better of us and we decided it was safest to come down (there are very good safety measures at the top of the tower, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able to fall, but he wouldn’t listen to the dangers and we needed to keep him safe).
We tried to have another tour of the tower but were met with cries of “I’ve already seen that” and “we’ve already been here” so we had to give it up as a bad job and left after less than half an hour. Bertie actually had more fun running around the perimeter of the hill (there are lots of signs asking people not to climb, but these were sadly ignored by the majority of families).
If you’re into your history, have older children who are doing a history project, or are just wanting a short trip out then Clifford’s Tower will suit – but for us with a small child, it didn’t live up to expectations. We much prefer the bigger sites where Bertie can run around and pretend to be a knight, or we can show him child-friendly images of what the building may have looked like in the past. Don’t get me wrong, after years of being intrigued about what was inside the tower, I’m glad we visited, but I’m also glad we had the passes as I’m not sure I’d have been happy to have paid £16.20 for 30 minutes in the tower.
Looking for more fun things to do around York? Then check out this post all about accessible museums in Yorkshire. How about some tasty treats while you’re visiting?
