28th November 2024

Taking a walk around Bishophill

Bishophill is a quiet area, sandwiched between the City Walls and the River Ouse. But it has a wealth of historical echoes. Unpeel the many layers of Bishophill history and you’ll find much of interest. We've now produced something to help you with this.

In medieval times there were religious buildings and gardens, notably those belonging to Trinity Priory. Later, churches were built in Priory St to serve a variety of other denominations.

Skeldergate is the riverside street, which once led to wharves for the import and export of goods. Here the riverside was lined by warehouses, flour and timber mills, and cranes.

Middleton’s Hotel on Skeldergate features a group of historic buildings, one of which boasted a visit from Charlie Chaplin and another was a former organ factory.

In the 19th century, straight rows of terraced housing were built, with doors opening onto Bishophill streets, to house the growing number of workers on the railways and at local firm Cooke’s Instruments, the world’s first telescope factory. These were supplied by corner shops, all gone now, but you can still see their shadows in the brickwork.

Historic pubs, such as The Golden Ball and The Aykhorne are still trading and the modern Cock & Bottle was built on the site of the old Plumber’s Arms.

We've now published a free walking leaflet to guide you around the wealth of interesting features in Bishophill. This was devised in memory of our Bishophill colleague, Elizabeth Melrose, and funded by a collection raised by her family.

The leaflet suggests a walking route starting at Skeldergate Bridge, which then goes west through Bishophill, following the line of the City Walls towards Micklegate, before turning east again towards Bishophill Senior and then Skeldergate. It finishes at Queens Staith, by the river again.

The walk takes around an hour. It’s based on our book about the area published in May this year, Bishophill and Skeldergate: exploring old shops, pubs and industries in York, on sale locally and in town.

Copies of the free walk publication are available at The Golden Ball, Explore York Library, York Visitor Centre and other local places.