THERE is a treat for readers of Yesterday Once More today – a series of postcards of old York as you almost certainly won't have seen it before (or which, at best, you'll remember only from early childhood) courtesy of reader Ben Booth.

Ben, of Clifton, has a collection of more than 2,000 old postcards of the city. One of his hobbies is to roam York with his camera and a selection of old postcards, snapping the same scenes as they are today.

First stop today is the old Colton's Hospital in Tanner Row. The hospital was established here in 1717, Ben said, when it provided accommodation for eight poor women. It was transferred to Shipton Street in March 1910 when the site was acquired by the York Corporation to enable improvements to be made to Rougier Street.

Next up: a very different-looking Nessgate and King Street in the early1900s, with an unfamiliar network of overhead tram cables, and a tram shelter that is somewhat dwarfed by the buildings it stands in front of.

There is a long-lost pub, the Elephant and Castle in Skeldergate, in a picture taken in the 1940s.

“Once the terminus for the coach to Wharfedale and the union coach to Knaresborough and Harrogate, it was referred for compensation in 1958, closed shortly afterwards, and eventually demolished,” Ben says.

In the late 1950s, on the corner of Museum Street and Lendal where Costa now stands, there was once a branch of the Prudential. It is not entirely clear why the traffic policeman in Ben’s postcard is wearing a white overcoat, perhaps it was to make him more visible.

And finally, a building which still stands today, but is almost unrecognisable because of the way the setting has changed: the former JR Hayes grocery store on the corner of the Harcourt Street and Mill Lane junction of East Parade, Heworth. The photograph was taken in the early 1900s. “The Tang Hall estate is yet to appear in the background,” Ben says.

York Press:
The corner of Harcourt Street in Heworth