Swinegate Quarter & Grape Lane

This area now known as the Swinegate Quarter is home to numerous shops, galleries and trendy bars and restaurants.

Grape Lane is one of the oldest streets in the city, although it had an unsavoury reputation in medieval times, when it was called Grope Lane and the home of York's ladies of the night (despite most of the properties being owned by the Church!).

Now it is a well-heeled street with quality shops and restaurants.

In earlier times, when the printing press first came to York, the courtyards off Grape Lane were teeming with the hustle and bustle of the printing and book-binding community.

The tiny alley known as Coffee Yard connects Stonegate and Grape Lane and is steeped in printing history.

Here the first York newspapers were printed, including the forerunner of The Press.

An unusual building in Grape Lane is the hexagonal Grape Lane Chapel of 1781, taken over by the Primitive Methodists in 1820.