THIS collection of photographs shows a long-lost York pub, hotel and club - but a building that remains familiar today.

Every day, thousands of people pass this building on the corner of Fawcett Street and Paragon Street, near the Barbican Centre...

York Press:

But not all will remember what it once was.

This picture from the late Hugh Murray's Directory of York pubs shows the same building in 1919, and our images above are from its turbulent 1960s and 70s.

York Press:

The City Arms opened in Fawcett Street in 1829. It was a popular venue for many years with market-goers and traders and was a popular pub for well over a century.

In 1969 though, John Smith's Brewery announced they would not be renewing the lease. 

At that time, David Chapman and his wife Dorothy Dunne had run the pub for ten years. Mr Chapman had also set up the Apollo Cabaret Restaurant in York, but they left York when the City Arms closed, to take over a hotel in Devon.

The City Arms lease was taken over in November 1969 by Ray Dickinson, who had previously run The Waggon and Horses in Lawrence Street and the Coach and Horses in Micklegate. 

He ran it for several years, but in 1972 the City Arms was hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons, when arsonists targeted it four times in a month. Three of our pictures above show the firefighters and the damage.

Five years later, in 1977, the pub had closed and was given a new lease of life as the headquarters for the newly-formed York City Arms Sports Club.

It had already been a meeting base for the York and District Amalgamation of Anglers and the York City Baths Club.

The club continued to operate until 2001, when it closed. A year later, developers unveiled plans to turn the building into flats.