THERE must have been countless pubs and inns in York’s long history that are lost to us now. Walmgate alone at one time was bristling with them, of which only a very few remain.

We still have old photos of some of these ‘lost’ pubs. Others are known only from references in old street directories. Many, no doubt, have been forgotten altogether.

Reader Alan Stockdale believes he’s discovered a photo of one of them, however: The Clarence, which once stood at 1 Davygate, next to St Helen’s Church.

Alan found the photo at an antiques stall off Walmgate. It definitely shows an old inn called the Clarence Hotel, with the landlord and his family standing beside the door. Sadly, there’s no name of the licensee or of the brewery which owned the pub above the door, which would have made identification easy. There is a small shield in one window, which may have borne the landlord or brewery’s name – but it is too indistinct to be able to read.

Nevertheless, Alan is 90 per cent confident that this is the pub which once stood on Davygate: the photo was, after all, found in York, and it seems of the right period, he says.

He believes the photo probably dates from the 1880s or 1890s – in which case the landlord might have been WHA Coates, who ran the inn from 1885-1893. Other members of his family then continued to run the pub until 1902.

According to the late Hugh Murray in his book A Directory of York Pubs, The Clarence – if this is indeed the right Clarence Hotel – was originally known as Addison’s Hotel, and then St Helen’s Hotel. It had become the The Clarence by 1851, but closed in 1912, to be replaced by first the York Gas Company building, then a series of other businesses.

There’s still a niggling doubt over this photo, however. We’d love to know for sure that this really is the Davygate pub. Do any readers recognise it from old photos they may have seen, or from other clues you can spot? Over to you...

While we’re on the subject of pubs, we thought we’d dig out a few more old photos to entertain you with.

One shows the old Black Bull in St Sampson’s Square in about 1900. According to Hugh Murray, this pub is mentioned in an advertisement from as long ago as 1687. The subject of the advert? Bull baiting – which may help explain the pub’s name. It closed in 1932.

York Press:

The Black Bull, St Sampson' Square, abut 1900

Other pubs featured here include:

The ‘Big Coach’

York Press:

This is actually the Coach and Horses in Nessgate/ Low Ousegate, but was known as the ‘Big Coach’ to distinguish it from another pub of the same name on Micklegate.

Previously Harrison’s Coffee House and then Ellis’s Hotel, by 1902 it was a large pub with nine bedrooms, a club room and a dining room, with two bars below. According to Hugh Murray, who wasn't the kind to make mistakes, the 'Big Coach' was demolished in 1904, together with the Star and Garter, to allow Nessgate to be widened for electric trams. Our photo is clearly more recent than 1904, however; so perhaps it shows a more modern buldiing roughly on the site of where the old Coach used to be. Any thoughts, anyone?

The City Arms, Fawcett Street

York Press:

According to Hugh Murray, this was a ‘new’ hotel opened in November 1829 to cater for people attending the newly-opened cattle market just outside the city walls.

The City Arms was a popular venue for many years with market-goers and traders and remained a busy pub for well over a century.

In 1969, however John Smith’s Brewery announced they would not be renewing the lease. David Chapman and his wife Dorothy Dunne had been running the pub for ten years, but they left York 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 above-mentioned Coach and Horses (the ‘small Coach’?) 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.

York Press:

The City Arms suffered four fires in a month in 1972

Five years later, in 1977, the pub had closed. It was given a new lease of life as the headquarters for the newly-formed York City Arms Sports Club, which continued to operate until 2001. A year later, developers unveiled plans to turn the building into flats.

The Black Bull, Hull Road

York Press:

This is a pub which, according to Hugh Murray, was mentioned as early as 1840. It was bought by grocer Samuel Border in 1892, and was rebuilt as a road house in about 1935. It recently announced a refurbishment. One of our photos (above) is an undated exterior. The other (below) shows how the interior used to look, in 1983.

York Press:

The bar of the Black Bull in Hull Road in 1983

The Travelling Man, Tadcaster

York Press:

OK, so this is not actually a York pub, but it’s a great old photo, dating from the early 1900s when a William Hanshard seems to have been the landlord. ‘Good stabling’, says a note on the pub sign. We have no reason to doubt it...