King's Manor

King’s Manor stands on Exhibition Square in York, a Grade I listed building that once housed the abbots of St Mary’s Abbey. The abbey was dissolved in 1539, and Henry VIII turned the site into the seat of the Council of the North. The council met there until it was abolished in 1641. Thomas Cecil, Lord Burghley, served as President in 1603 when James VI and I stayed for three days on his journey south. The building was later upgraded by Thomas Wentworth, who added new doorways and coats of arms between 1628 and 1631. The manor became the residence of the Governor of York from 1667 to 1688. During the Glorious Revolution, Sir John Reresby remained loyal to James II, but Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby, captured the building for William of Orange. After 1688, it was rented to private tenants until the Yorkshire School for the Blind took it over in the nineteenth century. The school expanded the building before leaving in 1958, when York City Council acquired it. Today the manor is part of York St John University, which plans to create new teaching spaces and facilities. The building has housed the Department of Archaeology and centres for medieval and eighteenth-century studies. Its Dining Room once hosted important meetings between the university and the city. The site remains a key piece of York’s history, blending centuries of political and academic life in one grand structure.