Appointments at The Guild Room
A potted history
The Guild Room can be found a short walk from our shop on the Shambles located within our building at 31 St Saviourgate. St Saviourgate itself was described in the early eighteenth century as “one of the neatest and best built streets in the city,” No.31 is a fine Georgian townhouse built in 1735. 1n 1781 the house was purchased by Admiral Hugh Robinson who returned to England after the loss of his ship in the Battle of Cape Henry in the American War of Independence. He lived in the house with his wife Mary and their 13 children.
When Admiral Robinsons family left in 1834 the house was divided in two (No. 29 and 31) the present doorway into No. 31 was added at this time. For the remainder of the century it was home to a number of occupants including a pair of elderly spinsters, a chaplain to the Asylum on Bootham and a professor of music. From 1901 until 1956 31 St Saviourgate housed the Haughtons School, where poor children from the parish of St Crux were taught to read and write.
The house is now occupied by The York Ghost Merchants; Our main workshop is sited in the old school rooms to the rear of the building. There are six full time ghostmakers working here, each Ghost is still made in the traditional small batch method of 14 ( a Ghostmakers dozen ) at at a time with each Ghost produced different to the next.
Our post room for packing and dispatch is adjacent to the workshop where ghosts are sent out in their traveling boxes to homes around the world. Upstairs are our offices and the Music Room. Downstairs in the front panelled room, formerly the dining room and more recently the headmasters study, is where you will find The Guild Room. Within are curiosities to amuse and delight along with over five hundred Ghosts, including some rare & unusual, to choose from. We look forward to welcoming you as our guests soon.
Please note that The Guild Room accepts card sales only, no cash can be taken and cash is not kept on the premises. The Guild Room is wheelchair accessible but we do not have disabled toilets on site.
Booking information
The Guild Room offers a unique York Ghost Merchants shopping experience in a tranquil and genteel setting. Available strictly by appointment or invitation only, we stress that we are unable to accommodate any customers who have not booked through the calendar.
Appointments will be made available a few weeks at a time through the calendar below, there will be limited availability on a first come first served basis.
In 2024 we will be operating the following system :
Wednesday will be the only day for Guild Room bookings for these initial appointments.
Bookings now secure a 45-minute appointment for two people with a maximum of 8 people in attendance at the Guild Room. per time slot.
Each appointment booking is now for a maximum of two people; the person making the booking and a named guest..
There will be four slots per 45-minute appointment to make a maximum of eight people present per timed slot.
Children under the age of 11 do not need a booking slot and can attend an appointment with adults named on the booking appointment. Children under 11 do not receive an additional allocation of Rare & Unusual Ghosts if they are accompanying two adults, in this situation the allocation must be shared by the adults making the booking. However if a child attends as the guest of just one adult then they will be able to have their own allocation of R&U Ghosts.Please fill in the booking form questions about children attending if they are extra guests.
This means people attending a Guild Room appointment will now be sharing their visit with up to six others who they might not know, we are doing this to increase opportunities to experience The Guild Room. Private appointments or larger group bookings will not be available for the time being.
In order to make appointments more available to more people we are restricting appointments per person to one visit every 2 months / 8 weeks.
There is no charge for a booking appointment.
Selection of Rare & Unusual ghosts will not be quite so expansive as previously at The guild Room but there will always be a good choice of fine Ghosts to select from. We will be putting out the same quantities of rare & unusual Ghosts per appointment but do not guarantee one of each type per person unfortunately. The shelves will be comprehensively restocked between appointments.There will be certain restrictions placed on numbers of Rare & Unusual Ghosts available per customer as per the Shambles shop. The allocation per adult in the Guild Room is a maximum of four Rare & Unusual Ghosts -Metallics, Terrazzos, Stonemasons, Cellar Ghosts- one of each type There is also the opportunity to purchase Polished Ghosts and a single Phantom of each variety available. We will review the allocations bi-monthly and may be able to increase quantities later in the year.
Appointments are only valid for the person who made the booking and their named guest and are not transferrable. Booking confirmation and ID are required on arrival. We reserve the right to cancel any duplicate appointments from the same person.
Please note that appointment times cannot be amended once made but you may cancel through the booking confirmation form if necessary. We kindly ask that if you are not able to make your appointment that you cancel your booking with at least 24 hours notice (when possible) so another person or group can benefit. If you do not attend an appointment and have not notified us, we reserve the right to cancel future bookings. If there are no appointments available to book, then the calendar will not be visible, and a message box will appear asking you to check back another time. We will continue to trial & revise the system over the early months of 2024. We hope that we will be able to offer more appointments to more customers throughout the year.
There is no booking fee for an appointment.
We are sorry but we no longer allow dogs to attend Guild Room appointments. we love dogs but the decision is out of respect to the other guests who will share your appointment.
Appointments are strictly 45 minutes, please arrive promptly. We accept card payment only in The Guild Room, no cash is taken or kept on site.
Appointments cannot be rescheduled and are not transferrable. An appointment is valid for the person who made the booking the booked guests only, your booking confirmation and ID is required on entry. The booking confirmation will be sent to you by email on confirmation of your booking. Without this access cannot be granted unless permissions have been requested and arranged in advance under special circumstances.
Booking appointments are restricted to one visit per customer every 60 days ( 2 months ) currently . This may be revised in February.
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Appointments up to June 26th 2024 have now been booked up. If there are no appointments showing as available on the calendar below then we are currently fully booked. Cancelled appointments will automatically show up on the booking calendar so it is worth checking periodically.