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Railway carriages inside
the walls near Lendal Bridge
Cross the bridge and continue along the wall-walk, which takes us
around the city. Outside the walls on your right you will see a little
graveyard, which contains the victims of the cholera epidemic of 1832.
The epidemic claimed 450 lives. According to one newspaper of the time
the "pestilence silently ... entered the city, and took up its deadly
stand ... in the dwellings of the poor". Although there are only
twenty gravestones, many more were buried here but the graves of the poor
remain unmarked. In 1841 a railway station opened within the city walls
to your left. In order to get trains into the city, the entire wall and
rampart was demolished and a huge arch built to allow the wall-walk to
be restored. As traffic grew more lines were needed. A second arch was
built in 1845 and in 1876 a third was cut to provide access to the city
centre from the new railway station, which opened outside the walls, in
1877.
At the south-western
corner of the city wall stands Tofts Tower, which was blown up by the Scots
in 1644 but rebuilt the following year.
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