York has been talked about, photographed and listed in a thousand top ten guides. But the version of the city you find on those lists is rarely the one locals actually know and want to tell you about.
So we caught up with Gavin, a York native and Invisible Cities tour guide, about the places, stories and small details that make this city worth visiting more than once. So if you are planning a trip and looking for the best things to do in York beyond the obvious, this is the local view.
Start at Exhibition Square: York in 360 degrees
Gavin calls Exhibition Square “a time machine”, and once you stand in it, the description makes total sense. Spin slowly on the spot and you can read the city’s history in all of its layers. The Assembly Rooms hold the Georgian era. The grand frontage of York Art Gallery places you in the Victorian times. Look further and you find the medieval gates and the Roman walls that have framed York for almost two thousand years – that’s pretty mind blowing.
Most visitors walk straight through Exhibition Square on the way to somewhere else. So we recommend that you stay for a moment or more and take it all in. Few cities let you see this much of their past from a single standing point.
York Castle and the strange afterlife of Dick Turpin
A short walk away, York Castle is one of the most dramatic places in the country. The highwayman Dick Turpin, born in 1705, was imprisoned here under the alias “Palmer” and sentenced to death on 22 March 1739 for horse theft. In life he was a violent criminal. In death he became a folk hero with lots of children’s book modelled on his legacy.
The detail Gavin enjoys on his Family Fun History Tour might surprise you but we promise it’s delivered in a family friendly way! At his hanging, Turpin hired five professional mourners to follow him up the scaffold, putting on a show for the crowd. His body was later dug up and sold for illegal dissection, before a York mob marched on the surgeon’s house to reclaim it.
Follow the chocolate trail
York is one of the greatest and most famous chocolate cities of Europe and maybe even the world. The story starts with one woman, not a corporation. In the 18th century, Mary Tuke opened a small grocery shop in Walmgate. That business eventually passed to Henry Isaac Rowntree, who founded the Rowntree’s Cocoa Works in 1890. At its peak, the factory employed up to 14,000 people and had its own fire brigade. Kit Kat, Rolo, Smarties, Quality Street and Aero all came from here. And if you haven’t visited York’s Chocolate Story we highly recommend it – the guides are incredible and the tastings are obviously delicious!
Terry’s came earlier still, founded in 1767 by Robert Berry and William Bayldon. Frank Terry later gave the world All Gold and the Chocolate Orange. Less famously, there was once a Chocolate Apple. It did not catch on! We are big Terry’s Chocolate Orange lovers!
Roald Dahl is said to have drawn on the Cadbury and Rowntree rivalry when he wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The whole story is woven into York’s streets, alongside all of the tales of ghosts, hauntings and super natural goings on – especially in and around cobbled streets of The Shambles – we love the tiny York Ghost Merchants where you can buy one of a kind small ceramic ghosts – after going viral on TikTok a few years ago, beware that you may have to queue for a short time before you go in.
Look up: the York Cat Trail
One of the loveliest things to do in York, especially with children, is to follow the York Cat Trail. There are more than 30 cat sculptures placed across the city, each with its own story. The tradition started in 1920, when Sir Stephen Aitcheson placed two cats on a building he owned on Low Ousegate. Some say they were there to scare rats. More likely, he just thought they looked cute!
In 1979, local architect Tom Adams revived the idea, placing his signature cats on the buildings he designed. York sculptor Jonathan Newdick brought them to life. Tom died in 2006 aged 75, but new cats are still being commissioned. The full trail takes around two hours. Most of the cats sit high on rooftops and ledges, which means walking through York with your head tilted firmly upwards so you don’t miss any!
Why see York with a local guide
You can do most of this with a map and a phone. You can also do it with someone who has lived here their whole life and reads the streets differently. Gavin grew up in York, worked as a teaching assistant and a playworker, and brings that background into his Family Fun History Tour with games, dressing up and a generous amount of fun and storytelling. It is built for families, but adults end up enjoying it just as much!
There is also another layer. The Invisible Cities tours in York are run by guides who have lived experience of homelessness, which means you are not only seeing the official map of the city but the human one underneath it. The streets look the same. The way you understand often changes and people say a tour with us is profound, inspiring and eye opening – Gavin is a hugely popular guide with our visitors and we think you’ll soon see why!
Plan your trip to York
If you want to do York properly, give it more than a day. Walk the walls. Sit in Exhibition Square. Find the cats. Eat the chocolate. Take a tour with someone who can show you the city behind the city and we’ll look forward to welcoming you.
Book a Family Fun History Tour with Gavin, or one of the other Invisible Cities walking tours guides across the UK, at invisible-cities.org.
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