Book that draws a Vale (From York Press)

Book that draws a Vale

12:11pm Monday 5th December 2011 in History articles By Stephen Lewis

THE Vale of York, the Biblical scholar Chevalier Bunsen once wrote, is the “most beautiful and romantic vale in the world” – before spoiling it slightly by adding “the Vale of Normandy excepted.”

Anyone who lives in this part of the world will surely be tempted to agree with the first part of that sentence at least.

Local historian Paul Chrystal has been making a name for himself in recent years by producing a series of fascinating “through time” books, which juxtapose old photographs of the towns, villages and landscapes of Yorkshire with new photographs of the areas, so that the readers can see how much they have changed.

In his latest work, Vale Of York Through Time, he turns his attention to the Vale, and the market towns of Thirsk, Ripon, Easingwold and Boroughbridge.

This week’s photographs in Yesterday Once More all come from the chapter entitled In And Around Easingwold.

Our first pair of photos show Easingwold’s George Hotel then and now. It was originally an eighteenth century posting house, where horses could be watered, rested or exchanged for the onward journey to Newcastle and Edinburgh, Paul notes.

“In 1776, the cost for a post horse was 3d a mile, for a post-chaise 9d, and for a four-horse chaise 1s 3d.” This latter was the Newcastle Fly, which travelled from York and Newcastle every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, and took the best part of a day to reach its destination.

There is no date for the older photo: but the cart standing outside, and the legend Hotel & Posting House clearly suggest it was in the days before the motor car. The new photo shows the hotel today.

Our second old photo was also taken in the Market Place, and presumably at about the same time as the first. It shows the York Hotel, with “good stabling & posting”, on the right of the picture, with a small gathering of people before it. The shop across the street is WA Fish.

Our other photographs today, all historical, show the Trevelyan Temperance Hotel in Long Street, and R. Smithson’s the butcher (today Thorntons).

The Temperance Hotel, Paul notes, was probably named after Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, president of the UK Temperance Alliance. “The shopkeeper is Hubert Baines, who bought the premises from George Haynes, whose name is still featured in the window. The delivery boy is a Barnardo’s orphan.”

Chevalier Bunsen was the Prussian Ambassador, and was created a baron in 1857. He was a Biblical scholar, who shared with his friend Lepsius the credit for being the world’s leading Egyptologist.

He had a house in Charlton House Terrace and also one in Sussex.

Smithson’s butchers shop