THE Duke of York is to visit the city next week to join in the Merchant Adventurers' 650th anniversary celebrations and open a £10 million new train depot.

Prince Andrew, who is the Royal Honorary Member of the Company of Merchant Adventurers, will spend an hour at the Merchant Adventurers' Hall, in Piccadilly, on Thursday.

On arrival in the Great Hall, he will be greeted by the playing of the Adventurers' fanfare, composed by Dr Richard Shephard to mark the Company's anniversary and played by a brass quintet made up of students from the University of York.

Later, he will be invited to accept on behalf of the Company a medieval seal matrix of the Percy Family, now the Dukes of Northumberland.

The seal, discovered by Tommy Allinson, a metal detector enthusiast, at Levisham, near Pickering, is almost identical to the one attached to the licence from the Percy Family in December 1356, granting the land on which the hall is now built to the direct predecessors of today's Company.

After saying a few words, the Duke will be invited to sign the Company's visitors' book and unveil a plaque, specially carved to mark the occasion by Dick Reid and Ian Broadbent.

He will then go into the gardens, where he will plant a London Plane tree to mark the occasion.

Earlier in the day, the Duke will mark a quarter of a billion pound investment in rail travel in the North of England by officially opening the new £10 million Siemens train maintenance facility in York.

He will travel to the depot from York Railway Station on a special Pennine Class 185 Siemens Desiro train.

The opening follows the completion of a £250 million investment by TransPennine in the Express Pennine Class 185 fleet of 51 Desiro trains.

As The Press reported earlier this week, the Duke will also be visiting Selby next week to officially open the town's £1.3 million community house.

The three-storey building in Portholme Road will bring most of Selby's community support and voluntary groups under one roof, providing quick and easy access to a one-stop shop for residents.