The walk between Bootham Bar and Monk Bar on York’s famous city walls is surely one of the most beautiful medieval wall walks in the country.
York Minster, the Treasurer's House and Gray's Court
Emerging from Bootham Bar gives you a wonderful view of the west end of the Minster to your right, above the Lamb & Lion’s pub beer garden. This stretch of city wall skirts around the perimeter of the old Minster precinct, where people employed by the church would historically lived – and still live, in some cases, as we’ll see.
You will pass the recently restored Minster Library on your right as you go north up to the tower at the corner of Gillygate and Lord Mayor’s Walk. The most impressive of the back gardens you get to see into belongs to the Dean of York Minster.
Toward the end of Gillygate you can see the roof of York’s Salvation Army church peeking out above the rooftops, and from the corner tower you can see the old Rowntree chocolate factory (now owned and operated by Nestle).
Some of the Rowntree family’s most famous chocolate creations, including the KitKat and the eponymous Yorkie bar, were made there, as well as Polo mints and many others, although the production line has shrunk in recent years.
On a clear day you can see the Howardian Hills and the North York Moors from this tower, including the chalk White Horse at Kilburn.
After the corner tower on the left you’ll see St John’s College, a college of the University of Leeds. The college dates back to 1845; Archbishop Holgate’s School, now located on the Hull Road, used to occupy some of the present-day college site.
York's Bile Beans ad on Lord Mayor's Walk
To the right you’ll pass Gray’s Court, a historic home of the Treasurers of York Minster but now a private hotel and tea room. You can also see the rear of the National Trust Treasurer’s House.
As you near Monk Bar, look out for the Bile Beans ad on the gable end of Lord Mayor’s Walk – a remnant of the age of painted-brick advertising. Bile Beans – you wouldn’t call them that nowadays, would you! – were made by Fisons and were phased out in the 1980s. Despite this, Fisons agreed to pay for the sign’s restoration in 1986 by the York Arts Forum.
You’ll then arrive at Monk Bar. Continue to Section 2: Monk Bar to Layerthorpe Postern or go back to Exhibition Square.