York Witches and History Old Town Walking Tour

Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate and St Crux

The walk begins on a street whose name makes everyone smile. Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate is one of the shortest streets in York, first recorded in 1505 in a spelling usually translated as 'neither one thing nor the other'. The ending gate comes from the Viking word for street, which is why so many York streets carry it. Local legend links the name to public whippings, and your guide uses it to open a story of punishment and suspicion in early modern York.

A few steps away stands St Crux, the parish hall of a medieval church of the Holy Cross that was pulled down in 1887 after it became unsafe. The hall was built from the old church's stones and still holds its memorials, and today volunteers run it to raise money for local charities. Your guide shares the building's secrets and sets the scene: the laws against witchcraft, the fear of illness and bad harvests, and how a neighbour's quarrel could end in court.

The Shambles and Shambles Market

The Shambles is the most famous street in York, a narrow medieval lane whose timber-framed upper floors lean so far forward that they almost meet overhead. Its name comes from the shamels, the benches where butchers laid out their meat, and wide window ledges still line the shopfronts. Halfway along is a small shrine to a butcher's wife who lived on this street and was executed in 1586 for sheltering Catholic priests, one of the most moving stories you hear on the walk.

Behind the street, the Shambles Market fills an open square with food stalls, local produce and crafts every day of the week, and it makes an easy stop for a snack after the tour. The walk passes the Shambles at the start and finishes at number 9, so you can linger for photos once the stories are over. Arriving on the later departure gives you the street in softer light and with fewer crowds than at midday.

King's Square and Petergate

King's Square takes its name from the royal residence that stood nearby in Viking times, and it lies close to where a gate of the Roman fortress once opened. Today it is a lively little square with benches, street performers and the entrance to the Shambles. From here the route follows Petergate, the street that traces the main cross-road of the Roman fortress and is named after St Peter, to whom York Minster is dedicated.

Petergate is lined with old shopfronts and timber-framed houses, and at its western end it meets the medieval gateway of Bootham in the city walls. Along the way your guide tells of cunning folk and wise women, the healers and charm-makers who could earn a village's trust one year and its suspicion the next. It is also a good moment to hear how England's witchcraft laws worked, and how they were finally repealed in 1736.

York Minster

Petergate opens onto the south side of York Minster, the largest medieval Gothic cathedral in the country, built between 1220 and 1472 on the site of the Roman fortress headquarters. Its stone carvings, gargoyles and the Great East Window, the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in a single window in Britain, make it the landmark every visitor wants to see. The York witch tour views it from outside, where the guide explains the role of the church courts in judging accusations of sorcery.

Entry to buildings is not included, but the Minster is an easy place to return to after the walk. York Minster opening hours usually run from morning to late afternoon from Monday to Saturday, with shorter Sunday hours around services, and tickets are sold at the door. Plan at least 90 minutes inside, and add time to climb the central tower if you are comfortable with steps.

Stonegate and Barley Hall

Stonegate follows the main street of the Roman fortress and became, in the Middle Ages, the street of goldsmiths, glass painters and printers. It is now one of the prettiest pedestrian streets in York, with painted shop signs and a little red devil at the corner of Coffee Yard, the old symbol of a printer's apprentice. Your guide points out hauntings along the way and leads you down the narrow snickelway to Barley Hall.

Barley Hall was built around 1360 as the York townhouse of a Yorkshire priory and later became the house of a wealthy goldsmith. Over the centuries it was hidden behind newer frontages and almost forgotten, until a demolition plan in the 1980s revealed the medieval hall inside. Restored and reopened in the 1990s, it shows how a prosperous household lived in the 15th century. Is York worth visiting for streets like this? Few cities keep so much of their medieval fabric.