For an astonishing 175 years, a York society has been battling to preserve what makes this city special. STEPHEN LEWIS reports on the Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society (YAYAS)

THE people of York can sometimes seem a little bit … well, set in their ways.

Just take the reaction of many to the shipping containers that have appeared in Piccadilly.

Never mind that this has for a long time been one of the most neglected corners of the city centre – or that once the containers have been painted and filled with snack bars, street food outlets and small businesses, Spark:York could bring some much needed life to the street.

No: many people in York don’t like the shipping containers, full stop.

A “small piece of Southampton docks transplanted on the site of the old Reynard garage,” was how one correspondent to the letters pages of The Press put it recently.

This resistance to change has been demonstrated many times in recent years, manifesting itself in the form of opposition to major development schemes such as Germany Beck, Derwenthorpe and Coppergate II; in scepticism over the need for a new community stadium; in impatience with attempts to tinker with the city's street layouts (remember the attempt to close Lendal bridge to traffic, anyone?); and even over issues such as the demolition of Reynard's Garage itself.

York folk aren't backwards about coming forwards when they see something they don't like.

That no doubt makes things hard for city planners and developers.

But thank goodness for it. Because it is the people who love York just the way it is who, by and large, are responsible for this being the beautiful city it is today.

There have been many individuals and organisations who, over the last 200 years, have battled to keep York pretty and proud.

They include people like the artist William Etty, who following the Minster fire of 1829 (caused by arsonist Jonathan Martin) helped lead a successful campaign to resist the redevelopment of the cathedral's interior, and who was also opposed to the destruction of the city walls; the countless ordinary citizens of York who, in the 1820s and 1830s, actually did far more than Etty to resist plans to demolish the city walls; Tempest Anderson, the surgeon and explorer who extensively photographed York in the early 1900s and who presented the Tempest Anderson Hall to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in 1912; and John Bowes Morrell, who in 1945 formed the York Conservation Trust with his brother Cuthbert.

Organisations which continue the fight to this day include the York Conservation Trust, which now owns and looks after almost 100 of the city's most historic buildings; and its sister organisation, the York Civic Trust.

There's another organisation, however, which - especially in the first few decades of the 1900s - was right at the forefront of efforts to protect York's heritage: the Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society (YAYAS).

Regular readers of the Yesterday Once More pages in The Press will recognise that name. That's because YAYAS holds one of the best collections anywhere of original photographs of York from the early 1900s - and has been generous enough to share many of them with The Press.

The organisation has a long and illustrious history - the first ever meeting of what was then called simply the Yorkshire Architectural Society was held in York 175 years ago, in what is now the Yorkshire Museum, on October 7, 1842. And YAYAS remains active to this day, running a series of lectures, publishing the York Historian magazine, offering grants to conservation organisations, and maintaining its collection of historic lantern slides and negatives.

It was originally set up to 'promote the study of ecclesiastical architecture, antiquities and design (and) the restoration of mutilated remains... within the county of York'.

One of its founder members was actually a Leeds vicar, Rev Dr WH Hook. But the first meeting was held in York, and its headquarters have been here ever since.

The new society made regular contributions to church restoration, in York and across the county. But it was badly hit by the collapse of its bankers, Swann Clough & Co, in 1879. By 1900, membership had dropped from a peak of more than 300 in 1867 to just 21.

Recognising that something needed to change, the organisation focussed its attention on York, and added the words 'York Archaeological Society' to its name.

It worked: there was an influx of new members - most prominent among them the GP Dr William Evelyn.

Dr Evelyn had arrived in York 11 years before, on January 19, 1891, aged 30, to take up a partnership in a Museum Street general practice. According to the late Hugh Murray in his book Dr Evelyn's York, he had left a London shrouded in a 'pea soup fog' to be confronted, in York, by an entirely different scene.

"He walked out of York Station and stood facing the city walls, which were covered with two inches of snow," Mr Murray wrote. "In the dim half light of a winter's afternoon, the walls in their mantle of white looked magnificent and created a great impression on the young man."

Such a great impression, in fact, that Dr Evelyn was later to declare: "I fell in love with York then, and have been increasingly in love with it ever since."

As a leading light of YAYAS, he gave full expression to that love - leading campaigns against the advertising posters which plastered every available surface in the city; launching a series of lectures to raise money for St Stephen's Orphanage in which he spoke out against the 'ruthless march of commercialism' which threatened the city's heritage; and campaigning to protect the city walls, Queen Margaret's Arch in Exhibition Square, and much more.

Dr Evelyn also amassed a huge collection of about 3000 glass slide photographs of York, which he used to illustrate his regular lectures. These he donated to YAYAS shortly before his death in 1935. They provide a wonderful window onto the York of the early 1900s, and form the centrepiece of the collection of photographs which YAYAS looks after to this day.

There won't be any great fuss made on the organisation's 175th anniversary on October 7: members are planning a lunch at Bedern Hall and a look at some of the recent archaeology discovered there.

But YAYAS remains active today, and dedicated to preserving York's history and heritage.

"We have about 150 members, one of whom sits on the York Conservation Area advisory panel," says Ian Drake, YAYAS' official 'keeper of the Evelyn collection'. "We let our opinions be known - for example, we were against the visitors' centre at Clifford's Tower. And we publish the York Historian and our own books, arrange lectures and excursions, and give grants to local societies and to authors."

And look after that incomparable collection of photographs of old York, of course. For that reason alone, this is one York organisation we should all be thankful for.

BLOB To find out more about YAYAS, or to become a member, visit www.yayas.org.uk

Panel 1

Defending the city walls

YAYAS and Dr Evelyn were at the forefront of efforts to save the city walls and ramparts in the early 1900s.

There were several threats. The first came in 1902. When a new street, Deangate, was built to connect Duncombe Place with Goodramgate, the city engineer needed somewhere to dump the debris. He decided the moat beneath the city walls in Lord Mayor's Walk would be ideal. YAYAS was appalled, sent a strongly-worded resolution to the city council, and on November 17 councillors voted against the plan.

Some councillors, however, decided that it would be good to make better use of the moats beneath the city walls. They proposed fencing off four sections of moat - at Lower Priory Street, Nunnery Lane, Baile Hill and Jewbury - and turning these into gardens with public benches. Again, YAYAS opposed the plans, and presented a strongly-worded protest at a public meeting on November 16, 1904. "The present condition of the walls with the banks and moats is most ornamental to the city and furnishes a healthy promenade for all classes of citizens," the YAYAS statement said. Again, the plans were halted.

YAYAS was unable to prevent the council digging away some of the earth ramparts beneath the city walls opposite the railway station a few years later to put up a shelter for passengers using the new electric tramway. But in 1911, with Dr Evelyn now the secretary, it did manage to successfully fight off plans to demolish an entire section of the city walls between Walmgate Bar and the Red Tower that would have allowed Navigation Road to be diverted so Leetham's Mill could build extra warehouses. As Hugh Murray wrote in Dr Evelyn's York, the YAYAS secretary met with both the town clerk and the city surveyor, and said he 'would raise heaven and earth to thwart any project to demolish the city walls at any point, no matter where'. They assured him the walls would not be demolished, and they were as good as their word.

Panel 2

The Hanstock collection

The Evelyn Collection is not the only collection of photographs of early 1900s York held by YAYAS. The society also looks after the Hanstock Collection.

Joseph Hanstock was a leading commercial photographer in York from the early 1900s right through to his death in 1942. His legacy includes a wealth of portraits, wedding photographs, group photographs, photographs of major social events, and perhaps most importantly postcards. He also worked with Dr Evelyn taking architectural photographs of the city.

On his death, his collection of images was bequeathed to YAYAS by his son Peter. YAYAS now has more than 2270 of Hanstock's slides, all of which have been digitised.