York has 3.4 kilometres of city wall still standing, the most complete medieval circuit in England, and you can walk almost all of it. The Romans built the first defences here in 71 AD, the Vikings took the city in 866 and renamed it Jorvik, and the Normans rebuilt the walls in stone on the Roman line.
Walking the circuit takes about two hours and it is free. It is also the best way to understand the place, because from the ramparts you can see how the medieval street plan still governs the modern city — the Shambles, a lane of overhanging timber buildings where butchers worked, is narrow enough in places for two people to touch both sides.
The city and the dales behind it
York itself is compact, walled and walkable: the Minster with the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the country, the Shambles, the Jorvik centre built over an excavated Viking street, and the National Railway Museum.
Harrogate, forty minutes west, is the spa town: sulphur springs, Betty's tea rooms, and the Turkish baths of 1897 still operating in their original tiled rooms.
The Yorkshire Dales, north and west, are limestone valleys separated by thousands of miles of dry stone wall, most of it built during eighteenth and nineteenth century enclosure. The walls are the landscape — they are what makes the Dales look the way they do and they were built by hand, without mortar, by men paid by the rood.
The North York Moors and the coast, east, have the heather, Whitby and the abbey.
The nine below are grouped that way.
York
Inside and beside the walls.
The Grand, York occupies the former North Eastern Railway headquarters, a 1906 building of considerable scale, with a spa, a cookery school and the Minster a short walk inside the walls. It is the best hotel in the city.
The Grand, York
Inside York's walls · 5★ · $$$
The 1906 railway headquarters, with a cookery school
Check availabilityGrays Court sits in a house against the city wall behind the Minster, dating in part to the eleventh century, with a walled garden and a handful of rooms. It is the most atmospheric building here.
Grays Court
Against the wall behind the Minster · 4★ · $$$
Parts dating to the eleventh century, with a walled garden
Check availabilityMiddlethorpe Hall & Spa occupies a William III house in parkland just outside York, run by the National Trust, with a walled garden and a formality that has not shifted.
Middlethorpe Hall & Spa
Outside York · 4★ · $$$
A William III house in National Trust parkland
Check availabilityNo.1 by GuestHouse sits in a Georgian townhouse near the walls with a small room count and a good ground floor.
No.1 by GuestHouse
Near York's walls · 4★ · $$$
A small Georgian townhouse with a strong ground floor
Check availabilityHarrogate and Ripon
The spa town and the edge of the Dales.
Grantley Hall occupies a Georgian house on a large estate outside Ripon, restored at enormous expense, with three restaurants, a spa across several floors and a swimming pool that uses natural water. It is the most lavish hotel in the north of England.
Grantley Hall
Near Ripon · 5★ · $$$$
Three restaurants and a spa across several floors
Check availabilityRudding Park sits on a 300-acre estate outside Harrogate with a spa, a golf course and a rooftop garden.
The Dales
Among the walls and the limestone.
The Devonshire Arms occupies a coaching inn on the Bolton Abbey estate with a spa, a starred restaurant and thirty thousand acres of Devonshire land around it.
The Devonshire Arms
Bolton Abbey · 4★ · $$$
A coaching inn on thirty thousand acres
Check availabilitySwinton Park sits in a castle at Masham on a 20,000-acre estate with a falconry school, a cookery school and a deer park.
Swinton Park
Masham · 4★ · $$$
A castle with falconry, a deer park and a cookery school
Check availabilitySimonstone Hall occupies a former hunting lodge at Hawes in Wensleydale, with views down the dale and the walls running up the fells behind.
What we have left off
The inns across the Dales villages are excluded, and in walking country they are the traditional way to stay, with rooms above a bar and a fire. They are pubs rather than hotels.
What to do
Walk the walls, and climb the Minster's central tower for the view down into the medieval street plan.
Go to the Jorvik Viking Centre, which is built over an actual excavation and is better than its ride format suggests, and to the Yorkshire Museum.
Take the Turkish baths at Harrogate, which have been operating in the same tiled rooms since 1897 and cost very little.
Drive or walk in the Dales: Malham Cove, a 70-metre limestone amphitheatre with a pavement of clints and grikes on top, and the Ribblehead viaduct on the Settle-Carlisle line.
Eat and drink well. Yorkshire has a serious food scene now and the breweries are among the best in Britain.
Practical notes
York is under two hours from London King's Cross and Leeds Bradford is the nearest airport. The city is walkable; the Dales need a car.
May, June and September are ideal. Summer is busy in York and on the Dales roads. Winter is short-dayed, quiet and the estate hotels light fires.
York floods occasionally when the Ouse rises, usually in winter, and it is worth checking if you are staying by the river.
Every hotel bookable in Yorkshire
Questions people actually ask
Can you walk the whole wall?
Almost all of 3.4 kilometres, in about two hours, free.
York or the Dales?
York for the walls, the Minster and the history. The Dales for the limestone and the walking. Forty minutes apart.
What are the dry stone walls?
Field boundaries built without mortar, most during eighteenth and nineteenth century enclosure, and they are what the landscape is made of.
How many nights?
Four. Two in York and two in the Dales.