Green York: Gardens, Riverbanks and Easy Escapes

For a city defined by stone — walls, minster, cobbles — York is remarkably green. The Ouse and the Foss run through it, the ramparts are planted with bulbs, and a chocolate-making family spent the early twentieth century giving the place parks. Here is where to go when you have had enough of history for one morning.

Inside the walls

Museum Gardens

Ten acres of botanical garden wrapped around the ruins of St Mary's Abbey, with the Yorkshire Museum in the middle and a Roman tower in the corner. Free to enter, full of picnicking students in term time and peacocks more or less permanently. It is the best lunch spot in central York and most visitors walk straight past the gate.

Dean's Park

A small lawn tucked behind York Minster, with the best possible view of its north side and almost none of the crowd that is standing at the west front. Bring a coffee.

The walls in spring

The ramparts near the Minster are famous for daffodils, and for a few weeks the whole circuit turns yellow. Walk it early — the walls open around dawn and close before dusk, and the light is worth the alarm.

Just outside

Rowntree Park

Given to the city in the 1920s by the Rowntree chocolate company as a memorial to employees lost in the First World War. Lakes, a bowling green, a café in the old reading room, and a riverside path that leads straight back to the centre. It floods occasionally, which locals treat as a seasonal event.

New Walk

An eighteenth-century tree-lined promenade along the Ouse, laid out when strolling was a formal activity. It runs from the edge of the old town down to the Millennium Bridge and makes a perfect loop back along the far bank.

Askham Bog

A short way out of the city, an ancient fen and the founding reserve of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust — boardwalks, rare plants, and a landscape left over from the retreat of the glaciers.

Easy escapes

Castle Howard, a vast baroque house in parkland north-east of York, is the grandest half-day in the region. Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site near Ripon, pairs Cistercian ruins with an eighteenth-century water garden and is arguably more beautiful than anything inside the city walls. Further out, the North York Moors and the Yorkshire Dales are both within reach for a full day, by car or on the seasonal bus and rail services.

Tip: Walk out of York rather than driving out. The riverside path south from the centre runs for miles past meadows and villages, and it is entirely flat — an afternoon's escape that begins at your hotel door.