Steeped in history and dating in parts from Norman times, Helen Heraty's extraordinary hotel has antique-filled bedrooms, an oasis rear garden bounded by the city wall, and a fine-dining restaurant. Hidden down a narrow cobbled street and with Jacobean and Georgian additions, it has been home to Henry VIII’s brother-in-law Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and Oliver Cromwell’s commander-in-chief Sir Thomas Fairfax. William, Duke of Cumberland, came by after the Battle of Culloden. Each bedroom is unique, some with a view of York Minster, and bathrooms are tiptop. Willoughby, overlooking the garden, has a William IV four-poster. Two-level Edwards, reached via a winding staircase, has a copper bath and walk-in shower on an upper floor. Bay-windowed Cumberland has a free-standing bath and double walk-in shower. You can lunch on small and large plates (lobster arancini, monkfish ‘scampi’, seafood or vegetable chowder) in the panelled Jacobean Long Gallery. Organic home-grown produce features on tasting and à la carte dinner menus in the Georgian Bow Room Restaurant, in dishes such as hispi cabbage, mussel, garlic mustard; lamb saddle, asparagus, green garlic. Drop-ins hoping for afternoon tea may be disappointed, but ghost hunters could be in for a thrill.