AWARD-winning York Hotel Grays Court has revealed expansion plans.

Owner Helen Heraty is applying to City of York Council to convert a coach house into seven new en-suite bedrooms for the boutique hotel.

Guests would continue to have meals such as breakfast in the main hotel building.

The proposal follows a successful 12 months for the hotel which neighbours York Minster and has unique access to the city's Bar Walls.

It won three prestigious awards, being named the best hotel in York, Yorkshire and best small hotel in England.

The hotel also opened a garden bar last summer which kept it going through the Covid downturn.

It is closed for the moment, but is planning to open in the spring, lockdown restrictions permitted.

The building is one of the most historic in the city:

* Grays Court dates back in part to 1080 and was commissioned by the first Norman Archbishop of York to provide the official residence for the Treasurers of York Minster, the house has an unrivalled history.

* James I dined at Grays Court with Edmund, Lord Sheffield, the Lord President of the North, and he knighted eight noblemen in the Long Gallery in one evening.

* Sir Thomas Fairfax owned Grays Court between 1649 and 1663. Sir Thomas preceded Oliver Cromwell as Commander-in-Chief of the Parliamentary armies in the Civil War.

* The 300m stretch of City Walls which bounds Grays Court was donated to the city in 1878 by Edwin Gray, the Lord Mayor of York. This is why Grays Court retains the only private access to York’s City walls.

For more planning applications, visit york.gov.uk/SearchPlanningApplications