York's culture runs deeper than its walls: the country's most important studio ceramics collection sits in a Georgian townhouse, a 1744 assembly room copies a Palladian villa, and Bedern's arts quarter keeps the medieval mystery plays alive.
Opens 10:00 (Wed–Sun) but the Exhibition Square forecourt and William Etty statue reward an early look. Inside: the Centre of Ceramic Art with 5,000+ British studio pots — Hans Coper, Lucie Rie, Bernard Leach — plus Etty's nudes and Old Masters.
Castlegate townhouse of 1762 remodelled by John Carr, saved from use as a cinema foyer and dance hall. Holds the Noel Terry collection of English 18th-century furniture and a rococo plaster ceiling by Giuseppe Cortese. Open Tue–Sun.
England's oldest surviving convent, founded 1686 in secret when Catholic worship was illegal. The neoclassical domed chapel of 1769 hides behind a plain Blossom Street facade with eight exits for escaping priest-hunters. Exhibition plus a Grade I chapel.
Timber-framed guildhall of 1357–1361 on Fossgate, one of the largest surviving medieval halls in Europe. The Great Hall's crown-post roof, the undercroft hospital and the private chapel are all original; the guild still meets here.
Working since 1744 on the site of St Leonard's Hospital, with a Victorian auditorium behind a Gothic Revival facade of 1880 and a 1967 concrete-and-glass foyer by Patrick Gwynne. Backstage tours run most weeks; the medieval undercroft survives below.
Lord Burlington's Egyptian Hall of 1732, the first neo-Palladian assembly room in Britain, modelled on Vitruvius's description of an Egyptian hall. Forty-eight Corinthian columns run the length of the room, now used as a restaurant.
Housed in the former debtors' and female prisons of 1705 and 1780. John Kirk's collection of everyday objects fills Kirkgate, a reconstructed Victorian street, and the cells where Dick Turpin was held before his 1739 execution.
A redundant Norman church on Walmgate converted in 2000 into a concert hall for early music, with a Romanesque carved doorway moved here from St Nicholas's Hospital. Hosts the York Early Music Festival each July and BBC Radio 3 recordings.
Greek Revival building of 1830 by William Wilkins, set in ten acres of botanic gardens laid out around the ruins of St Mary's Abbey. Holds the Middleham Jewel, the Coppergate Helmet and the Ryedale Hoard of Roman bronzes.
Bedern Hall, the 14th-century refectory of the Vicars Choral, anchors a lane of small studios off Goodramgate. The York Mystery Plays wagon performances still set out from here, and the hall hosts three city guilds' exhibitions.
Reached through an archway off the shopping street: a small church with 15th-century clear-and-coloured glass, box pews of the 17th and 18th centuries and a floor that visibly slopes. Kept by the Churches Conservation Trust, open most afternoons.
Independent cinema in the converted Yorkshire Herald printworks, with a riverside terrace over the Ouse and a basement screen. Programmes arthouse releases, the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in November and live-streamed opera.