Living in the past (From York Press)

Living in the past

10:37am Monday 2nd January 2012 in History articles By Stephen Lewis

More glimpses of a vanished York this week, to help you usher in the New Year.

Like those we brought to you last week, all the photographs on our pages today come from the City of York Council’s Imagine York website.

And, like last week’s, they all show York scenes with which we are familiar today – except that, because of the passage of time and the demolition of streets and buildings down the years, they are unsettlingly different.

Our first photo was taken in 1853 by the photographer William Pumphrey, and shows Clifford’s Tower “from the castle yard in front of the debtors’ prison’. The building to the right – long since demolished to make way for a car park – is the prison governor’s house, which was built between 1826-35.

In 1900, the prison and castle were handed over to the military and used as a military prison until 1929. In 1934, the site was sold to the city corporation and the governor’s house was demolished in 1935.

Our second photo, taken in 1863 by an unknown photographer, shows Barker Tower, on the south (station) bank of the River Ouse. To the right are the Ebor works, which belonged at the time to S Varvill, a wholesale ironmonger and iron and steel manufacturer.

But where is Lendal Bridge? The answer may be provided by the crane just protruding into the frame at the left. “This image seems to date from when Lendal Bridge was being built,” notes the caption.

There is no Lendal Bridge in our third photo either. Taken in 1852, it shows Lendal Tower on the opposite bank of the river from Barker Tower, and the ferry which shuttled between them.

The two towers, which date back probably to the 1300s, would have been used to defend the gap in the city walls created by the river, and probably to collect tolls from goods being shipped in and out of the city.

A great iron chain was stretched across the river between the two towers and boatmen had to pay a toll to cross it.

At one point, Lendal Tower also contained the waterworks which had been established in 1677 by London merchant Richard Whistler.

The tower actually housed the header tank and pumping machinery, powered originally by a water wheel, then a horse gin, then a steam engine. By 1849, just three years before this photo was taken, the new waterworks had opened at Clifton: but the offices remained here in the tower.

Two more river scenes to finish with. The first shows the Guildhall from the opposite bank of the Ouse in 1853 – the Yorkshire Herald offices had not at that time been built, so St Martin le Grand on Coney Street is clearly visible.

The second shows the old Windmill Inn, near the entrance to what today is St George’s Field car park. The water in the foreground is the Foss Basin: Clifford’s Tower is visible in the background on the left.

The Windmill Inn in the early 1850s

• All these photographs, and hundreds more, can be viewed on the City of York Council’s Imagine York website, imagineyork.co.uk