York
Two miles of city wall, one street of butchers and a railway museum that charges nothing
- When to go
- September 14° · 12 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€price 3 of 5
- How many days
- 1–2days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 39 km Leeds · 64 km Humberside
- Right now
York is a city you walk from above, on 3.4 kilometres of wall — the longest surviving in the country, with no ticket and no booking. Underneath is a place that was a Roman fort from AD 71, then Viking Jorvik, then the medieval capital of the north. All three versions fit inside one day of walking.
The walls aren't one continuous loop: the walkway breaks in several places, so you drop to street level and climb back up. The full circuit takes about two hours with stops, and the best stretch runs between Bootham Bar and Monk Bar, where the Minster appears side-on from an angle nobody photographs. Gates open at eight in the morning and are locked at dusk — from November to January locking starts at half past three, at Fishergate Postern Tower, and takes about an hour to work round. In ice or strong wind the walls stay shut.
The Shambles is narrow and, by midday, solid with people. It was the butchers' street, its upper floors built further and further out until they almost meet overhead. Before nine the same lane is empty and you can finally see why anyone remembers it. The same goes for the whole centre: York is small, twenty minutes on foot in any direction, and the difference between nine and eleven o'clock is bigger than the difference between seasons.
Money works oddly here. The National Railway Museum, one of the largest of its kind anywhere, charges nothing and only recommends booking a slot online when it's busy. A Minster ticket is €23 and stays valid for twelve months from the date on it, so you can come back tomorrow. JORVIK, built over the Viking dig of the 1970s, is €20, again valid for a year, and a time booked ahead gets you past the queue at the door.
Guides for York
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
York in 1 day
→One day by the hour: the walls and the Shambles before the Minster opens, the museum behind the station after lunch…
Day trips from York
→Whitby for the abbey and Dracula, Castle Howard for the grounds, the Dales for the stone, Harrogate for the spa.
York 50 metres from the queue: crooked pews, a Cold War bunker
→Church pews nobody straightened, a Cold War bunker, and passages named in 1983 — places just off the main streets.
What to see in York
The city walls
Mostly thirteenth-century, in pale magnesian limestone, partly on the foundations of the Roman fort of AD 71. You climb up at any of the four main bars — Bootham, Monk, Walmgate and Micklegate — and walk them for free.
York Minster
One of the largest Gothic cathedrals in northern Europe. The Great East Window, made by John Thornton between 1405 and 1408, is the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in a single window in Britain: 311 panels, the size of a tennis court. With the central tower climb the ticket is €30.
The Shambles
Some fronts still carry the meat hooks and the wide wooden shelves where the butchers laid out their meat. Shops fill it now; after seven in the evening it's as empty as before nine.
The National Railway Museum
Open daily 10 to 5, last entry 4.30, except 24 to 26 December; free timed tickets are released six weeks ahead. Inside are Mallard, the fastest steam locomotive ever built, a Japanese bullet train and the royal carriages. With children it's half a day rather than an hour, so plan it that way.
JORVIK
A museum built over the Coppergate dig, where the remains of the Viking town came out of the ground in the 1970s. You ride in small cars through a reconstructed street of AD 975.
The snickelways
The web of narrow passages between streets, named by a local author in a 1983 guidebook. Free and genuinely useful: they cross the centre away from the crowds and open onto courtyards you'd never see from the road.
Stories from York
How it actually was when we were there, and what was worth it.
York in three layers: the walls, the Minster and Vikings underfoot
→Every age in York built on the one before, and you can see it in one tower, one muddy dig and one window.
Two things you probably did not know
York was founded by the Romans in 71 as Eboracum, the emperor Septimius Severus died here, and Constantine the Great was proclaimed emperor in the city in 306. The Vikings passed through the same town and called it Jorvik.
York Minster holds the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in Britain. The east window is the size of a tennis court, and in both world wars it was taken apart into thousands of pieces and stored safely.
Ready for York?
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Within reach from here: Liverpool, The Lake District and Cambridge
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