Camversation Explore: York August 2026

ABOUT THE EVENT

Half of York is behind scaffolding this summer. The station, the Minster's Rose Window, St Michael le Belfry, the Bar Convent, St William's College and the Eye of York are all being worked on at once.

So we are going the other way.

Julie Cowdy has planned us a route through the snickelways and up onto the city walls. A snickelway is a narrow passage between buildings, the word made up in York from snicket, ginnel and alleyway, and there are more than fifty of them within a quarter of a mile of the Shambles. The walls are the greatest snickelway of the lot. York has more intact city wall than anywhere else in England, and parts of it are Roman.

It is a different York from the one on the postcards. Lamps and lettering, doorways and cobbles, the Minster seen from the rooftops rather than the front, and stonemasons cutting replacement stone by hand in the Minster yard.

We start at York Explore at 10:00 and walk two miles at most, slowly, with plenty of stops. Julie has built in a route through St Leonard's Hospital and the Multangular Tower, Museum Gardens and St Mary's Abbey, the Minster and Dean's Park, Treasurer's House and Ogleforth, then the walls from Monk Bar round to Bootham Bar.

WHAT TO EXPECT ON THE DAY

A full day. 10:00 to 17:00. Most of our meet-ups run three or four hours. We have made this one longer so there is time to eat, sit down and talk, and not feel hurried through the city.

Relaxed and informal. This is not a photographic march or a formal workshop. Think of it as a gentle wander with like-minded people, and no pressure to keep up with anyone.

Help if you want it. There is no one-to-one tuition, but you will find everyone happy to share a tip or a bit of advice over their shoulder. Some of our most experienced photographers come to these days.

Your own pace. We share locations on the day, so you can dip in and out, spend longer somewhere that interests you, or peel off and catch us up. People come and go as they please.

Dinner together. I have booked a table at Ask for 6:00pm for anyone who would like to stay on. Entirely optional, and often the best part of the day.

WHAT YOU MIGHT COME AWAY WITH

• Unfamiliar views of familiar places. Everyone has seen the Minster. Almost nobody has photographed it from Dean's Park in the late afternoon with the scaffolding in shot.

• Detail work. Doors, windows, worn stone, cobbles, old advertising and street signs. There are more than thirty lamps in the snickelways alone.

• Street and candid. Ninety pubs sit inside the medieval walls, and the streets around them are busy in August.

• A city in the middle of being repaired. Renovation is usually the thing photographers wait out. This time it is the subject.

WHO CAN COME

Anyone. If you have joined us for an online session before it will be lovely to put a face to a name at last, and if you have never been to anything of ours, this is an easy first one. Nobody arrives knowing everybody.

The route is two miles at most and mostly flat. There is one staircase of 22 stone steps up onto the walls, and anyone who would rather not climb it can walk round at ground level and meet us at the other end.

ABOUT JULIE

Julie Cowdy is one of our own community, and she has organised this entire day for us. She knows York, she has planned and walked the route herself, and she will be there on the day with paper maps for everyone.

FROM MARK

Julie has been trying to get to a Camversation photowalk for two years. She booked York in 2024 and got snowed in. She booked Liverpool last summer and was having treatment. She made it to Birmingham in March for a couple of hours during The Photography Show, and that was that.

So when she offered to plan this one, I said yes before she finished the sentence. What arrived was a proper route, walked and checked, with alternatives for the weather and a note about where to get a coffee first.

These days are my favourite thing we do. You spend a few hours photographing with people who care about it as much as you do, and by the evening you are sat round a table with them.

A NOTE ON THE DAY

Julie asked if we could support a fundraiser rather than make a fuss of her, so Camversation is donating to the Motor Neurone Disease Association in her friend Andy Robinson's name. That felt like the right way to say thank you.

BOOKING

£40. This covers the coordination and the route. Food, transport and personal expenses are not included.

Full joining details, the meeting point and Julie's map go out to everyone who books.