York Minster is one of the great cathedrals of the world. We invite you to enjoy its vast spaces, filled with music and revealing the human imagination at work on glass, stone, and other fabrics.

Whatever your faith and culture, you are welcome here, to see for yourself the life of a centre of Christian belief.

York Minster is loved not only by people in the United Kingdom and Yorkshire, but by countless people across the globe. We hope you will be among them. 

York Castle Museum is one of Britain's leading museums of everyday life. It shows how people used to live by displaying thousands of household objects and by recreating rooms, shops, streets - and even prison cells.

It is best known for its recreated Victorian street, Kirkgate, which combines real shop fittings and stock with modern sound and light effects, to evoke an atmosphere of Victorian Britain.

The street was named after the museum's founder, Dr John L. Kirk, a North Yorkshire country doctor who collected everyday objects and wanted to keep them safe for future generations.

The museum's room settings include a Victorian parlour, an 1850s Moorland cottage, Jacobean and Georgian dining rooms, a 1940s kitchen and a 1950s front room.

Shambles (also known as 'The Shambles') is a bustling centre piece of historic York. The street today is one of the UK's most visited and has become a wealth of shopping, tourist attractions, restaurants and many other things to see and do, including tours, ghost walks and historic talks. If you want to know York, you need to know Shambles.

The way that fifteenth century buildings lean into the middle of the cobbled street means that the roofs almost touch in the middle. Mentioned in the Domesday book (making it date over 900 years), we know Shambles to be York 's oldest street, and Europe's best preserved Medieval street. It really is a very special place.

The word Shambles originates from the Medieval word Shamel, which meant booth or bench. It was once also referred to as Flesshammel, a word with meaning around flesh; this is because Shambles was historically a street of butchers shops and houses. Records state that in1872 there were 26 butchers on the street. The last butcher to trade on Shambles was at number 27 of the name Dewhurst.

The National Railway Museum is the largest railway museum in the world with a huge collection of millions of railway artefacts. The museum traces the history of the railway from the Rocket to Eurostar. Also houses a huge photographic collection. The railway children's play area is for younger visitors. Rides on the miniature railway or full size trains normally available.

Clifford's Tower is all that remains of York Castle. William the Conqueror built a wooden castle here in 1086, atop a high conical mound over looking the River Ouse.

That first castle was burned by rebellious natives, and a second one built. That building saw one of the most horrifying episodes in York's colourful history in 1190.

A mob of citizens rioted against the Jewish population of York, and 1190 of the Jews took refuge inside the castle. Many of the Jews committed suicide rather than allow themselves to be captured by the bloodthirsty mob outside, and more died when the building was set on fire. The remainder were slaughtered by the mob.

Another wooden castle was built to replace the burned building, but this blew down in the 13th century. A new stone castle in a quatrefoil shape was built in 1270 on the orders of Henry III. The roof of the tower was lost to fire in 1684.