Qualla: Beverley Bar

Beverley Bar: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Wright, CC BY-SA 2.0. Buses still pass through it. Modern double-deckers operated by East Yorkshire run the road into Beverley one vehicle at a time, in single file, because the arch above the road was built in 1409 and the brick is not negotiable. A set of lights controls the flow. The North Bar, or Beverley Bar, has been the principal entrance to the town since before Henry V passed beneath it in 1420. The town it guards never built proper walls, so the four toll-bars that once collected pavage on every cart and horse and bag of wool entering Beverley were standalone gates in a perimeter that was otherwise hedgerow, ditch and good intentions. North Bar is the last one left.

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Image: David Wright | CC BY-SA 2.0

Beverley Bar: Built in brick, built for tax

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JThomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Bar was put up in 1409 at a cost of 98 pounds, which sounds modest until you translate it into roughly 128,000 pounds in modern money. It is one of the earliest substantial brick structures in northern England, made of locally fired clay rather than imported stone, and the br...

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Image: JThomas | CC BY-SA 2.0

Beverley Bar: What the upstairs was for

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Croft, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Bar is two storeys, with the road running through the arched ground floor and rooms above. In the 15th and 16th centuries the town governors used the upper level as a viewing gallery during the Corpus Christi play cycle, the religious dramas that townspeople performed in the ...

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Image: Richard Croft | CC BY-SA 2.0

Beverley Bar: Layout and survival

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Wright, CC BY-SA 2.0. The North face has two buttresses flanking the arch and a carved stone cartouche of a coat of arms above the centre point. Two recessed windows on either side of the cartouche have been bricked up, with a third recessed window above. A course of brickwork marks the level just bel...

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Image: David Wright | CC BY-SA 2.0

Beverley Bar: Fairs and the road through

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MortimerCat, CC BY-SA 3.0. From the 17th to the 19th centuries, the street within and without the Bar was where the town's livestock fairs happened. In 1673 the biannual horse fair was held on the inside street, the sheep fair outside. In 1686 the cattle fair was moved to the inside street and the sheep an...

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Image: MortimerCat | CC BY-SA 3.0