ACCORDING to tradition, the first-ever purpose-built almshouse in England was established in York in 936 AD.

It was, goes the legend, built just to the west of Anglo-Saxon St Peter’s Cathedral, near what is today York Minster, with the help of a gift from King Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great.

There is a lovely story in local historian Carole Smith’s new book, The Almshouses Of York, which suggests why Athelstan may have been feeling so generous.

“According to legend,” writes Carole, a semi-retired university librarian, “King Athelstan passed through York in about 936 after his victory over the Viking armies at the battle of Brunanburgh and observed the culdees, or secular canons of the cathedral, providing alms to the poor from their own slender resources. His gift of money and an endowment enabled the construction of a dedicated almshouse or hospital on royal land close by…to accommodate some of the very poor, elderly and infirm people of the city, some of whom were sleeping in the streets.”

This is, Carole admits, one of many myths associated with medieval almshouses – but there does seem to be some truth to it.

What we do know is that two serious fires – one in 1069, during William the Conqueror's infamous Harrying Of The North, and another in 1137 – led to the “hospital”, as it was known, being moved to the south-west corner of the old Roman fortress, near what is now the Multangular Tower in Museum Gardens.

It was renamed St Leonard’s Hospital – and the ruins are still there to this very day.

It was to be the first of many almshouses or hospitals established in York during medieval times. The word “alms”, Carole explains, derives from the Greek word for compassion. To begin with, hospitals and almshouses were set up by guilds or municipalities to provide refuge and assistance to the poor, elderly and infirm, and anyone asking for help at their doors.

By the 15th century, they had become homes for those who lived in them, rather than hostels for casual arrivals.

The occupants were expected to pray for their benefactors – which led to them also being known as bedehouses, from the Old English word for prayer, bede. The occupants were known as bedesmen, a term which survives in the name of the York lane, Bedern.

St Leonard’s may have been the first, but between 936 and 1983, no fewer than 50 almshouses or hospitals were established in York.

A dozen remain to this day, offering accommodation to up to 180 people. The oldest of them, Sir Thomas Hesketh’s Hospital in Heslington, was established by Dame Julia Hesketh in 1608 in memory of her husband.

He had bought the mills next to York Castle in 1603, intending to use the income from them to found and maintain a hospital for retired workers on his Heslington estates. He died before this could happen, but his wife carried out his wishes. Eight almsmen lived there, and possibly one woman.

Many of the almshouses are now long gone. But Carole’s book has a meticulous account of them all: from medieval ones such as St Catherine’s Hospital on what is now The Mount, founded outside the city walls as a leper hospital in the early 14th century, to almshouses that still exist to this day, such as the Sir John Hunt Homes in Fulford.

The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs and – when it comes to older almshouses long-since vanished – paintings and sketches, many in the possession of York Minster or the city art gallery.

The images we reproduce today include a stunning landscape drawing of The Ancient and Loyall City of York, made by William Lodge in 1678, and held by the art gallery; and, also held by the art gallery, a more recent watercolour of St Catherine’s by W Twopenny, showing it as it was in the early 19th century, with the windmill on The Mount in the background.

• The Almshouses of York, by Carole Smith, is published by Quacks Books, priced £15. It is available in local bookshops, or direct from Quacks at 7 Grape Lane, York.