IN the 1850s, market traders in York were not happy. A new street - Parliament Street - had been built to accommodate them 20 years earlier.

But now they wanted protection from the weather as well.

Proposals were put forward for a huge covered shelter running the length of the street.

And one of the designs that emerged was for a giant glass palace - a ‘covered market of glass and iron’, as it was described.

It would have been a Crystal Palace of the north, as our contemporary illustration, reproduced on the centre pages today, reveals.

Sadly, nothing came of it.

But it is nice to try to picture how the street might have looked today had it gone ahead.

Rather magnificent, we suspect.