From our archives:

85 years ago

Interesting and valuable discoveries had been made in the course of some extension work to York College for Girls in Petergate.

Workmen had discovered a timber-framed building containing some magnificent oak.

The extensions were being carried out under the direction of Messrs Ward and Leckenby, the York architects.

Thinking that this unexpected discovery might lead to other features, the architects gave instructions that every care was to be taken.

As a result a large recess with a moulded arch in two orders had been unearthed.

Among the discoveries in the brick filling, they found a halfpenny token bearing the date 1793, which was probably put in to record the date of the filling in of the Tudor fireplace.

Speaking into a microphone The Lord Mayor of York Alderman Wragge officially opened the York Relay Service Station at Yearsley Bridge, York.

50 years ago

Film star Hayley Mills had shed her innocent teenage image to become a blonde bombshell at the age 20.

Hayley, daughter of actor John Mills and writer Mary Hayley Bell, was to co-star in Pretty Polly with Trevor Howard and Indian actor Shashi Kapoor.

Shepherd’s Building Group were due to sign a contract worth about £700,000 to build the new luxury Viking Hotel in North Street, York.

A group spokesman said the work would start on the site as soon as the river level subsides and would take 16 months to complete.

The nine-storey, 100-bedroom hotel was being built for Spiers and Pond Ltd, and planned to employ over 100 full-time staff.

To mark their successes in the Selby Licensed Victuallers Association darts league the members of the Crown Inn, Hemingbrough, held a celebration dinner to toast their success at winning the league knockout trophy and league runners-up trophy.

20 years ago

Mines rescue workers had to be called in by RJB Mining bosses after an underground fire broke out at Selby’s Riccall Mine.

The fire known as ‘heating’ in an old worked-out area about half a mile below ground was being sealed off in an attempt to starve the fire of oxygen.

Youngsters whose school was reduced to a blackened shell in a huge blaze returned to lessons in unfamiliar surroundings as more than 200 pupils from Park Grove Primary School began the process of settling in at Queen Anne School.