WELCOME to the pub that came back from the dead. And welcome from me, the man who wrote it off so prematurely.

The Bay Horse, at the foot of Marygate, is the pub that York thought it had lost. Seven long years ago it closed, and when the council approved plans in 2007 for it to be converted into flats and offices, amid little resistance, the future looked bleak.

Yours truly even wrote the fateful report for this newspaper. Drinking-up time was over and last orders had been called for evermore, I said, perhaps wallowing a bit too much in the poignancy of it all.

How blissfully wrong I was. A few months later brought uncertainty in the housing market. Cue the collapse of the conversion plans and cue fresh hope. A year later, the building was re-sold and two days before Christmas 2008, it was back open, pulling its first pints in more than five years. This place shouldn’t be called the Bay Horse... It should be called the Lazarus Arms. And it should give hope to anyone else who thinks their local is doomed.

I could prattle on for hours about this pub, holding forth about its previous incarnation on the opposite side of Marygate, the construction of the present building in the 1890s, and its decades-long love-hate relationship with the Ouse – a source of day-trippers and floods for as long as anyone can remember.

That I could do so is testament to one Eve Briggs, landlady here from 1951 to 1986 and one of the most brilliant people I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing.

Eve died just weeks before the deal to reopen the Bay Horse as a pub was signed but I still cherish a memorable afternoon a few months earlier, in which she relived her time behind the bar, showed me picture after picture from days of yore, and poured out memories like they were pints of the finest ale.

Eve longed to see the building revived as a pub and it saddened me enormously that she didn’t. Whenever I visit nowadays though, as I did this week, I can’t help feeling she’d approve. Because after a couple of rapid-fire changeovers, the place is thriving.

There’s a good selection of lagers and ciders both on tap and in the fridge, a tiered back shelf crammed full of spirits including nine malt whiskies, and a handful of real ale pumps too.

They were dominated this week by offerings from Moorhouse’s of Lancashire, tying in with an enjoyable “meet the brewer” evening on Tuesday.

When I returned on Thursday, the bar still boasted four, namely: Black Cat, Pendle Witches Brew, Pride of Pendle, and my own favourite, Blond Witch – a 4.5 per cent pale ale with powerful citrus and hop flavours and a rasping dry finish.

Any one of those beers could find a suitable partner from the vast menu, in a pub where food is now king.

The quality, at least judging by Tuesday’s tastings, is top-notch, and it’s helping the Bay Horse once again carve a reputation becoming of a splendid building with a proud past. I’ll know better than to write it off again.

Shorts

*Look out for a new addition to the menu at the Three Tuns in Coppergate. They’ve teamed up with York Sausage Shop in Shambles and the bangers in the bangers and mash are now made with Hobgoblin beer.

*The Yorkshire Terrier in Stonegate has a cider festival next weekend.

*The Turf Tavern in Acomb has a charity race night from 7pm to 10pm next Saturday, with karaoke and disco.

*Varsity in Lendal has been refurbished and has now re-opened as The Graduate.

*Structural work is being carried out at O’Neill’s in Low Ousegate but it remains open.

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