[citation needed] The Archbishop of York, Cyril Garbett, and the Lord Mayor Fred Gaines were in attendance at the first meeting of the Trust.

The Trust has contributed to the development of a series of pocket parks,[12] small quiet areas in the city, like the one adjacent to All Saints' Church.

[13] In 2016/17 it campaigned to save the Bridge Lane Gates, originally installed for the former Archbishop Holgate’s Grammar School playing fields, which are now occupied by the York and District Hospital.

Repairs to the Bridge Lane gates were paid for and organised by Trust members and the work was carried out at the workshops of Barker & Patterson in Hull.

[16] In 2018 the Trust contributed to an exhibition in St Williams College and a book titled The Streets of York, Four centuries of change.

At Civic Days in June, as part of its drive to raise its profile, experts have offered free walking tours of York.

Blue plaques in the city include dedications to Alcuin, the poet W. H. Auden, the nineteenth-century architect GT Andrews, the comedian Frankie Howerd, Guy Fawkes’ house in Stonegate, and one to commemorate Richard III’s investiture of his son as Prince of Wales in York in 1484.

[citation needed] The Trustees who form the Board of York Civic Trust employ a full-time chief executive and other part-time staff from its headquarters in Georgian Fairfax House, on Castlegate.