A YORK housewife has donated an extraordinary legacy to the city's archives - scrapbooks showing the changing face of the city over a period of more than 15 years.

Ann Gordon, 72, of Rawcliffe, has been tramping the city's streets taking photographs since the 1980s.

The result is a total of 39 scrapbooks of walks around York, including detailed notes, which Mrs Gordon has donated to the central library.

Now some of the photographs will be added to the Imagine York website - a digital photo archive to include up to 7,000 images.

She explained: "I am not trying to make another book about York. Basically I am a housewife with a camera."

During the course of her walks around the city, Mrs Gordon recorded many buildings that were knocked down, such as the Davygate Arcade, replaced by an extension for BHS.

She said: "If it was in the papers that somewhere was going to be demolished, I would go along. But I would always ask permission before taking a picture.

"Often I would walk about just looking for things - like weeds growing through a statue on Lendal Bridge."

Mrs Gordon said one of her favourite memories was a series of pictures she took of legendary Evening Press newspaper seller Les Richardson on his last walk from the newspaper van to his stand on the day he retired.

Yvette Turnbull, Imagine York project officer, said: "We are very pleased to have the pictures because the library has got people's scrapbooks going back over 100 years - it's wonderful to have something contemporary.

"What is interesting about her scrapbooks is that she has collected such a lot of ephemera - such as a menu or a bag.

"In the future, it's going to be very, very interesting."

Mrs Gordon is now going to put together more scrapbooks, entitled: The Things I Missed the First Time.

She said: "I thought I knew Clifton very, very well - I have lived there all my life. You think you see everything - but you don't."

She said: "I am still stunned at the reaction of the library - I can't believe they actually wanted my pictures."

Updated: 09:45 Monday, March 08, 2004