A FEW shops to start off with this week, beginning with Holgate & Sons, the electrical dealer which once stood on the corner of Stonegate and Davygate, next to St Helen's Church.

As well as lamps and other electrical goods, the shop also sold cycle accessories, including - judging by the lettering in the shop window - 'inner tubes and covers'. There's no date for this photograph. But - like the other photos on these pages - it comes from the extensive collection held by the Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society (YAYAS). Many of the photographs in the YAYAS collection date from the early 1900s through to the 1930s. We suspect this is at the earlier end of that period. The cobbled surface of the Stonegate/ Davygate junction can clearly be seen.

Next up is Sampson's, the newsagent and stationer which doubled as a public library. There's nothing, at first, to indicate on which street this photograph was taken. But the shop next door appears to be Leak & Thorpe, the famous Coney Street outfitters. So this is clearly Coney Street, probably again in the fairly early 1900s. The Yorkshire Post, a little known daily newspaper of the time (yes, that's a joke: they are, after all, our rivals) had an office above Sampson's.

William Banks & Co was a dealer in York hams, cheeses and other delicacies. It once stood on the sharp corner of Castlegate and Clifford Street - a site now occupied by the Prezzo Italian restaurant - and offered a tempting array of foodstuffs, ranging from 'breakfast bacon' and Cheshire, Cheddar and Wensleydale cheeses to new honey, marmalade, and 'Little Wensleys' cream cheese. Again, there's no date on the photograph, but look closely and you can see the tramlines set into the surface of Clifford Street. This dates the photograph to between 1910 and 1935, when electric trams operated in the city.

Two unrelated photos from the YAYAS collection to finish with. One shows York Central Library, with St Leonard's Hospital in the foreground.

Look closely at the library as it appears in the photo and you'll notice that it appears oddly unbalanced. This is because it has only one wing. The library was originally opened in 1927 - but it was later extended in 1934 and a second wing was added in 1938. This photograph, therefore, was clearly taken some time between 1927 and 1938.

And finally, a wonderful photograph showing a charabanc outing. It is a wonderful photograph which, despite the rather forced poses of the men in the charabancs, captures something of the excitement of these early trips out to the countryside.

There's nothing to indicate where this photograph was taken. Presumably, because this is part of the YAYAS collection, the men pictured (and they are all men: there is not a single woman among them) are from York. The registration number of the second charabanc is BT-374. A sign on the side of the first reads 'To carry 34 passengers'. We'd love to hear from anyone who might be able to tell us more...

Stephen Lewis