Fluted columns, feisty carpets, neo-classical symmetries, mauve leather … I’ve just arrived at Safestay, newly opened in York, and I’m trying to get a handle on what kind of a beast this is. It has beds, for sure, and does breakfast, albeit a simple continental affair, but it is not a B&B. It has a bar and a staffed reception, but is certainly not a hotel. There’s a luggage room, dorms and a launderette, but this is no backpacker bunkhouse either. Safestay, as far as I can tell, is occupying territory somewhere between all these options, and doing it with some panache inside an early Georgian gem of a townhouse. This is the second Safestay and definitely a chip off the old block, if you know the first – in an 18th-century building on Walworth Road, south London.

Let me backtrack, out of the front door, down the stone steps, back into York’s Micklegate, the kind of street that sent the architectural expert Nikolaus Pevsner into ecstasies when he first surveyed it around 50 years ago: so many gems and all knee-deep in gossipy history. Opposite Safestay is Trinity Church – a centre of resistance to Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. And here’s the entry gate where they displayed severed heads until 1754, when some joker ran off with the last one – maybe there were no traffic cones around that day.

Which brings me neatly to Micklegate’s more recent reputation as the north’s most elegant drinking locale, a half-mile neck of pubs, clubs and bars, all choked with hen parties and braying stags. Yes, that does still happen, but there’s a new mood emerging: a great new bakery, a craft brewery, and a string of good cafes and restaurants. Micklegate is definitely reinventing itself as somewhere more upmarket, a place where Safestay might fit rather well, with its innovative genre-busting bravura.

I head for Room 18, which must have the best view: a rooftop panorama that takes in York’s great landmark: the Minster. As in all the shared rooms, these large comfortable bunkbeds come with privacy curtains, which are very welcome, but there is no getting around the fact that people go to bed, and get up, at different times.

Light sleepers may prefer to take a smaller dorm – they sleep from four to 12 – or even one of the private rooms, which are decorated along the same purple lines as the dorms, but without the extra strangers. There’s a handy underbed storage locker (bring your own lock) and a dinky reading light that – with the curtains pulled – creates a cosy personal space that reminded me of sleeper train berths. It’s a weekday when I stay and the one other resident gets up at 5.15am. Perhaps I should count myself lucky: at the weekend he might have rolled in at that time. Be warned that weekends are a significantly noisy time for Micklegate, although fun too, of course, if that’s what you’re here for.

I’d definitely go for an upper room at the back on a Friday or Saturday – and select a berth far away from the shared en suite and shower (bring your own towel or pay £2). Breakfast is in the stripped-down basement, a self-service continental that is soon to be replaced by a more substantial meal for £4, I was told. It’s pretty basic: weedy orange juice, a coffee machine, croissants, yoghurts and cereals. At this price, however, I’m not complaining. There are internet terminals down here, too, and tables to work on. Midweek, this place attracts office workers who live a long way away and need a convenient bolthole. The building is huge, big enough to absorb many types: the purple and stripy bar is a good spot to start planning a night out, although my preference is the real-ale pub, Brigantes, a few doors away, where you can also get a decent dinner.

I wonder how the wealthy Bourchier family, for whom this magnificent townhouse was built in 1752, would react to the bold theatrical colours and brash artwork. Isaac Newton, carved in plaster on the staircase ceiling, doesn’t look too impressed but, next to him, Shakespeare is smiling. I’m with the bard on this one.

• Accommodation was provided by Safestay, 88-90 Micklegate, York, 01904 627720, safestayyork.co.uk. Dorm beds from £16, private twins from £60 B&B – but, from 1 June, breakfast will cost £4

Ask a local

Emilie Flower, film maker

• Eat
Italian restaurant Il Paradiso del Cibo (40 Walmgate) can look a bit disorganised but the food is brilliant. The dishes have stayed the same since it opened seven years ago, and the place is unspoilt by its success.

• Drink
Up a hidden staircase off Stonegate, one of York’s premier thoroughfares is The House of Trembling Madness, which offers craft beers, tapas and an audience of stuffed animals. To mix with the locals, head to The Golden Ball in Bishophill for great ales.

• Culture
Hire a bike for £20 a day from Cycle Heaven at the railway station and head to Beningbrough, the former seat of the Bourchier family. It’s eight miles from the city centre but the gardens are lovely and the house is an outpost of the National Gallery. New cycle tour company York Cycle Tours does excellent two-hour guided trips around the city, daily at 10.30am and 2pm.