HERE'S a puzzle for you...

A few weeks ago, we ran a series of aerial photographs of York taken from a hot air balloon in 1920.

One showed a long, hangar-like building running parallel with Bootham from behind York Art Gallery. That must, we speculated, have been the Great Exhibition Hall which once stood behind the gallery, and which was demolished in 1942 having been hit by bombs in the Second World War.

According to the History of York website, we reported, the gallery and exhibition hall had been built in 1879 to house the Second Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition.

All clear enough so far. But, while browsing Explore York's excellent Imagine York online archive of old photographs, we stumbled across several which showed the First Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition. This was held in 1866 in an obviously very grand building which appeared to have been especially built for the purpose.

But how could that be, if the Great Exhibition Hall wasn't actually built until 13 years later?

The answer, of course, is very simple. The History of the County of York makes it clear that the first exhibition was held in a temporary building put up in the grounds of Bootham Hospital. "The exhibition was attended by about 338,000 visitors between 24 July and 31 October, and a net profit of about £2,200 was made," the history notes.

That was quite some number of visitors - and quite some profit for the time.

No wonder the city fathers decided to hold a second exhibition, in 1879 - and to build a brand new exhibition building in the grounds of St Mary's Abbey fronting onto a new square (Exhibition Square).

The building put up for that exhibition is what is now the York Art Gallery. Behind it, however, was the giant, hangar-like building we noticed in that original aerial photograph we carried a few weeks ago. This was a temporary wooden building which, although declared unsafe and closed in 1909, was not demolished until it was hit by bombs in the war.

Mystery over. Judging by the photographs we have today, however, the original temporary exhibition building put up for the first exhibition in 1866 was quite some place. The exhibition, as the name implies, included not only works of art, but also displays of the latest Victorian technology and machinery: everything from lockstitch sewing machines, perambulators, washing machines and beds to statuary, etchings, engravings, natural history displays artworks, silk shawls - and even ladies underclothing...

It was, in short, York's answer to London's Great Exhibition of 1851 - and a powerful statement of Yorkshire's contribution to the bold Victorian age of invention. Judging from the photographs we have on these pages, the temporary building which housed it was clearly intended to be grand enough to carry it off.

We'd love to know what happened to it afterwards, however. presumably it was demolished. But when? And do any readers know what the shields on the front of the building are?

Stephen Lewis

The photos on these pages, and thousands more, are held on Explore York’s wonderful Imagine York archive. You can browse it yourself for free just by visiting imagineyork.co.uk/