The houses of the wealthy and the great lords were, of course, the better furnished.  They had walls adorned with tapestries and hung with arras or hangings; occasionally their walls were panelled.  Their furniture was rich, well constructed, and carved by skilled craftsmen.  Their mansions were large, for they had to house, beside the owner’s family and personal household, retainers and dependents attached to his service in diverse capacities.

Civic Buildings consisted chiefly of the halls connected with the trade guilds.  The rulers of the city and of the guilds were often the same men, in any case usually men of the same set.  These secular buildings were really distinguished in appearance, but not monumental.  They reflected something of the wealth that accrued from trade.  They were of good size and proportions, built to be worthy of the practical use for which they were intended.  The lower stages were of stone, the upper for the most part of wood and plaster (half-timbering).  The structural framework was composed of stout beams and posts of timber.  The timber roofs were covered with tiles.  Examples may be seen in the Merchants’ Hall, Fossgate, and St. Anthony’s Hall in Peaseholm Green.  The wooden roof of the Guild Hall, which was the Common Hall, erected in the fifteenth century, is supported by wooden columns.  The walls of this hall and the entire basement are of stone.

Of Davy Hall, the King’s administrative offices and prison for the Royal Forest of Galtres, not a trace remains to show the kind of buildings they were.

The Fortifications consisted of the Castle and the city Walls with their gateways.  The massive stone Keep of the Castle was on a high artificial mound at the city end of the enclosed area occupied by the Castle.  Around this mound there was a moat, or deep, broad ditch filled with water.  The Keep, which is in plan like a quatrefoil, consisted of two storeys.  Within, near the entrance, there is a well, the memory of which is for ever stained by the unhappy part it played in one of the most bitter persecutions of the Jews.  Beyond the Keep there were inner and outer wards, official buildings including the King’s great hall, the Royal Mint, and barracks for the King’s soldiers.  The entire Castle, which was the residence of the royal governor, and a military depot, was surrounded by walls, outside which were moats, or the river, or swamps, according to the position of each side.  These moats, or defensive ditches, were crossed by drawbridges.  To enter a fortified place in the Middle Ages one had to pass a barbican (i.e. an outwork consisting of a fortified wall along each side of the one way); a drawbridge across the moat; a portcullis or gate of stoutly inter-crossing timbers (set horizontally and vertically with only a small space between any two beams, giving the whole gate the appearance of a large number of small square holes, each surrounded by solid wood) that could be lowered or raised at will in grooves at the sides of the entrance opening.  The ends of the vertical posts at the bottom formed a row of spikes which were shod with iron.  The points of these spikes entered the ground when the portcullis was lowered.  Beyond, there were the wooden gates of the inner opening.