Hi
Three of my family had the pleasure of being on an AVG tour of York lead by Joanna, this morning.
We all thoroughly enjoyed the way in which Joanna shared interesting history and stories at the same time as looking out for our safety on steps etc as we made our way around the route.
It is so generous of folk like Joanna to volunteer to guide tours like this, and we really appreciated Joanna’s knowledge and skill as a guide this morning.

With thanks

Helena

Glyn was an amazing guide. So knowledgable and shared his interests in such a friendly and entertaining way. Although I’d been to York many times before I felt that I’d got down to the very beginning itself and the way it had been changed so many times throughout its history. The time passed by so quickly. Thank you very much indeed.

Had a great time on the tour with Richard, super knowledgeable and really made the tour informative, but also fun and funny.
Thanks again!

This was one of the best tours I’ve done. Glyn was both incredible informative and also entertaining. I learnt so much about York history. Absolutely amazing.

We thoroughly enjoyed our 2.5 hour afternoon adventure with Kevin. We saw a broad spread of the old city and learned about the history and explanation of what we saw.

Great way to start our visit to York

Our knowledgeable guide Fraser informed us about so many interesting details about York. This afternoon tour definitely exceeded my expectations and I will come back to York to explore more of York’s history. Thank you so much for your time.

Heidi from Germany

We did the tour with Glyn. Excellent guide! The tour was very entertainig and it gave a very rich overview of York’s amazing history.

Excellent tour by Mike. Friendly, welcoming to everyone, knowledgeable and paced perfectly to allow time to do other things. If you’re going to do a tour this is the one I’d recommend.

Mike was our guide- very informative, so much history discussed. Lots of sites shown including many little details you would miss if not on the tour. This was an excellent background to York and would highly recommend!

Our guide Glyn was very competent and friendly. This tour seems to me an excellent way to discover the city and gives excellent ideas to properly occupy the available time in York. Merci !

We had a fabulous tour with Nic our guide this morning. Nic was hugely entertaining, made history learning fun, and was passionate about sharing his knowledge of York. As an awesome and captivating story teller the 2 hours flew by. Highly recommend these tours.

I took a group of engineering students on Glyn’s tour, and it was absolutely perfect for international students. Glyn spoke clearly, was extremely knowledgeable and engaging, and did a fantastic job of keeping the students’ attention throughout. They really enjoyed the tour and found it both interesting and informative. Highly recommended!

Kevin was such a brilliant tour guide! Full of fascinating historical information. Such an intetesting tour!
5 star, highly recommended.

We had a lovely tour with John W.
He was a very knowledgeable and funny. We got a great overview of York’s history and learned a lot.

Love that the tours are free and accessible and the volunteers are so good. Thank you!!

Hi, we did a tour today at 10.30am with Alan. We had a fantastic time and learned so much about the history of York. We thought we’d covered most of York but Alan took us to places we hadn’t known about. We’re sorry we had to leave the tour slightly early. We’d booked the train museum tickets and didn’t want to miss our time slot. Afterwards we found a few snickelways and had fun exploring. Thanks Alan, we enjoyed the English/Scots banter too and hope to meet you again in the future x

The York tour was brilliant!
Glyn was our guide. From the start he put us at our ease with his humorous and knowledgeable delivery.
After he set the scene and timeline of his talk we were treated with engaging stories spanning 2000 years. We were hearing tales of buildings, walls, ruins and historical characters all fascinating in their connections.
We learnt so much and enjoyed conversation within the group.
This tour is a must!
Thanks Glyn
John and Kath

We had a fantastic tour with Richard. As first timers to the area, our knowledge was limited but he gave great summaries of the many different periods of York’s history. We are now keen to read further about this amazing city.

John was a wonderful tour guide: knowledgable, enthusiastic and engaging; at times whimsical and sarcastic, full of local lore and keen historical insights. We were there as a large family group (6 adults, 4 kids), and all of us greatly enjoyed it. His free tour was much better than some of the paid tours we took in other UK cities.

This was such a fabulous tour!! I really appreciated that our guide Glyn made historical life, so vivid for us. A lot of texture around making a analogies to what it would have been like, and discussion of social empowered dynamics. Could not recommend more!

We went on the afternoon tour with Kevin today and he was so welcoming and knowledgeable! My two kids, aged 9 and 11, came away from the tour with a great understanding of the history of the city, as did we! It was wonderful experience and perfect way to start our time in York!

We had the loveliest experience walking around York with Ken. He was really passionate about the city and transmitted that to the group. He was extremely knowledgeable and we really enjoy taking the tour with him. York is an incredible city, full of history and beauty and Ken made it come to life!

Fraser was full of information and kept the pace at the perfect speed. Excellent tour and such a friendly guide. Would recommend 100%

I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your work. I find it truly fascinating to see the passion Judy put into this tour. Her enthusiasm, knowledge, and the way she brings history to life made the experience so much more meaningful. Thank you Judy for sharing your passion with us—it really made a difference.

My family and I just had a delightful morning with Richard, a Historian and a highly qualified teacher, who volunteered to share his knowledge with visitors to York. I would recommend everybody join this tour.

We really enjoyed our guided walking tour with Debbie who was so knowledgeable and had a good sense of humour. Thank you Debbie!

We had the pleasure of enjoying a fantastic walking tour with Fraser today. It was very informative and interesting. Fraser is an open, friendly, and knowledgeable guide. I would definitely recommend it.

Our tour with Richard was excellent. He was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about York. I would highly recommend this tour.

Many thanks to Richard for a most enlightening tour today. He gave a great overview of the history of York and I would highly recommend joining this tour when you visit York.

It was hot, and the tour still lasted over 2 hours, every opportunity we had to go in the shade we all did It was very informative and a nice small group

We had a wonderful tour with Richard. He brought the history of York to life, pointing out details and background of what we were looking at.
So interesting, many thanks.

5 stars. Richard did a fantastic job of presenting a comprehensive and concise perspective of York’s history, spanning thousands of years no less. We really enjoyed it and would highly recommend this tour to anyone visiting York.

Glynn was such a good tour guide. Informative, relatable, funny too. I would recommend this tour to anyone going to York. I intend to come back and will take my family on the tour.

Today’s tour hosted by Glyn was really interesting and enjoyable. Definitely a highlight of our mini break in York. Highly recommended.

Well. Glyn was absolutely excellent. Learned so much by his relaxed and knowledgeable style. Nice balance of humour insight and warmth to his subject. Spoke clearly with us not at us. Saw amd learned about places we could so easily have walked past. This tour made my visit to York. Thank you

Glyn
Truly superb Storyteller, provided an excellent narrative covering many hundreds of years of both National and Yorks rich history..brilliant

Glyn was our guide …he made our tour fascinating with the historical facts that he shared. We were lucky to enjoy with a small group of 10 people. Glyn was professional, engaging, humorous and helpful. We truly believe that all tourists should sign up with the AVG tour guides. The information they offer is immeasurable. Thankyou so very much!

Really outstanding tour by Glyn. As a resident I know the broad history of the city, but this was still packed with great insights and interesting facts.
Glyn expertly set the historical context and chronology across 2000 years of history and was clearly knowledgeable beyond the confines of the tour route and had an engaging style, clearly passionate about history. A very engaging 2.5 hours that I would highly recommend.

Thank you Glyn for putting on a fantastic tour! The tour covered all the ‘must see’ parts of York with a great insight into the history of the city mixed with Glyn’s local knowledge.

Enjoyed a very informative and light hearted tour given by Glynn who taught us so much about the history of the city from Roman times to present day. So many interesting facts about the place and its people and nooks and crannies we would never have discovered without him !
Many thanks- would definitely recommend!

Richard made our York experience truly unforgettable. After spending a day exploring York on our own, we realised that we had actually understood very little of what we were seeing!

Thanks to Richard, we discovered places we had walked past without noticing, learned about York’s fascinating history, and visited many hidden spots that we would never have found by ourselves.

Over the years, I have joined many tours led by professional tour guides, and I can honestly say that Richard was more professional, knowledgeable, and engaging than many of them.

I would highly recommend this tour to anyone visiting York. Believe me, it will transform your trip and make your visit truly memorable.

Massive thank you to Nick our guide who taught us so much about the history of York and took us to some absolute gems- I would have never found without him. Absolutely brilliant would recommend this is your first stop in York!

We went on a walking tour this afternoon with Christina. She was full of interesting information about York delivered in a fun and engaging way. I’m so glad we chose this tour.

We had absolutely first class tour with Glyn. Glyn is very knowledgeable and you can tell history is his passion. In addition to being knowledgeable , Glyn provides all the information in very entertaining way. It was a pleasure to listen to Glyn for almost 2.5 hours. We not only saw the most important sights in York but also learned history associated with each sight. I can’t imagine a better city walking tour anywhere. Greatly recommended.

Excellent tour where our guide Neil was very knowledgable and delivered the information in an excellent way. Would recommend to anyone and all for free. What tremendous value.

Guided Tour – May 2026

Richard, our tour guide, did a great job. He was a history teacher, so that made his details all the more interesting.

Tour Start:

We took the morning tour at 10:30am. The 7:55 train from London left us with comfortable time on hand.

Starting point of the tour is centrally located and clearly marked . Some benches too, if you land up earlier and want to sit.

There were two guides that day and we were split into two groups. Good to pre-book, even though they do it for free.

Tour Duration:

It took us a little under 2h 30m. If you want to leave early you could do so.

Tour Highlights:

We started with the Museum Gardens, St. Mary’s Abbey – and over the duration of the walk covered the Multangular Tower. The King’s Manor, Bootham Bar, Monk Bar, York Minster (from outside), Goodramgate, The Shambles and an old Catholic church – Shrine of St. Margaret Clitherow near Shambles.

Richard gave us a good insight into –
The various historical aspects starting from the Romans, the Vikings, the Catholic-ness of the place et al.

Also saw how the fortification was done and improved on – fascinating!

Similarly the perspective on how St. Mary’s Abbey appears just as a set of walls now – The role of the monks and their power in an era gone by.

The importance of the location (near the river). There were a lot of small stories beyond just seeing the place which Richard explained very well.

Of course he also talked about the pride of the York people!
How the York Minster was left unscathed even though the area was attacked .

Overall:

I would recommend this tour. It was extremely good value for our time. Thank you Richard.

One thing that he mentioned at the beginning – Ask questions! The questions and his answers make this wonderful tour come alive!
Richard keeps the tour lively.
Thank you Richard.

We attended the tour today with Richard and enjoyed it immensely. It was our first visit to York and this was a great way to learn some of the history and see areas we wouldn’t have found on our own. Richard was a fountain of knowledge and made the tour really enjoyable and engaging throughout. The tour was accessible for my blind husband, enjoyed by my children and by our niece visiting from Minnesota, USA. I would highly recommend this – Richard was brilliant and it’s a great way to learn some of the history of the beautiful city of York!

We had an excellent tour guided by Fraser. He was very knowledgeable and informative and had a good sense of humour. We learned a lot about York that we didn’t know. We also went to a few places that we didn’t know about previously. We would definitely recommend this tour.

Spent this morning listening to an excellent guide, Fraser, who was knowledgeable and friendly and so engaging Highly recommended!