THERE'S only one NHS-run general hospital in York these days for anyone who's pregnant, or taken seriously ill, or who suffers a bad accident.

Unless you have a mental illness, York Hospital is the go-to place.

It wasn't always that way. In the past, York had a wealth of different hospitals scattered about across the city, catering for everything from pregnancy and fever to mental illness and general health.

Anyone of a certain age who grew up in York will remember some of these. We've been rummaging around in our archives to see if we could dig out photographs and a bit of information on them.

So here, in purely alphabetical order beginning this week and ending next week, is our guide to York's many hospitals. We haven't included York Hospital or Bootham Park. And we're confident there will be others we have missed out - perhaps readers will let us know?

Acomb Hospital (known as York Maternity Hospital from 1922 to 1954)

York's official maternity hospital from 1922 to 1954, Acomb Hospital was housed in the former Acomb Hall. The hall was bought by the York Corporation and officially opened as a maternity hospital in 1922. Most patients were from York, but a few were from just outside the city boundaries. The hospital also trained midwives.

It closed as a maternity hospital in October 1954, when services were transferred to the much larger Fulford Maternity Hospital. Renamed Acomb Hospital, it re-opened as a 40-bed geriatric hospital, run in conjunction with St Mary's Hospital in the city centre. It closed in October 1976 and quickly became dilapidated. There was anger in 1984 when files containing confidential details about former patients were found lying on the floors. The hospital was demolished in the late 1980s, and Acomb Gables Community Unit for the Elderly was built on part of the site.

York City Hospital

Formerly the infirmary of the York Workhouse on Huntington Road, this was taken over as a general hospital by the York Corporation in 1930. The aim was to modernise and extend it to take pressure off the York County Hospital - but by the time war broke out in 1939, less than half of the expansion had been completed. It was, however, officially opened as the new City general Hospital in November 1941 by Alderman William Wright, chairman of the city;s health committee.

During the war, the hospital took military as well as civilian patients. After the war, it became part of the NHS, and integrated its services with the city's other general hospital, York County Hospital: by 1951 there was a single admissions system for both.

A&E at City Hospital closed in 1961 and the children's ward in 1967, but a new ENT ward opened in 1968. The hospital ultimately closed in November 1976 when the new York District Hospital opened.

Clifton Hospital

Built as the North and East Ridings Lunatic Asylum in Shipton Road, York, in 1847, Clifton Hospital remain in operation for almost 150 years, eventually closing only in 1994.

The new lunatic asylum's first medical superintendent, Samuel Hill, stressed that he wanted to create a homely, family atmosphere for patients, in contrast to the conditions many mental patients were held in at the time. In its early days, like many asylums, the hospital had a flourishing farm (it bought Rawcliffe Farm was bought in 1884) and continued to maintain this until the 1960s.

The hospital became part of the NHS in 1948, when it was renamed Clifton Hospital. But numbers dropped steadily in the 1980s, and in march 1988 York health Authority agreed a plan to close it. That happened in 1994, and the hospital buildings were sold and redeveloped for housing and offices.

York County Hospital

The second of York's major general hospitals (with City Hospital) before York District Hospital opened in 1976, the county hospital dated back as far as 1740. It was originally founded in a rented house in Monkgate, before moving, in 1745, to a larger 50-bed new building, also on Monkgate.

In 1840 there was a competition to design a new hospital, and in 1851 the old hospital was demolished and replaced with a 'new' building, designed by JB and W Atkinson, that cost about £11,000 (a big sum in those days). The hospital merged with the York Eye Institution in 1887. In 1942, when York was bombed in the so-called 'Baedeker Raid', many of the casualties were treated at the County Hospital..

In 1977 the hospital's services were transferred to the new York District Hospital, although the ante-natal clinic remained on site until 1980. The new Sainsbury supermarket was then built on land around the hospital, while the hospital buildings itself, renamed County House, was used for a while as the HQ of Yorkshire water before being turned into flats.

Deighton Grove

Deighton Grove House, set in 70 acres of grounds at Crockey Hill south of York, was bought by York County Hospital in 1945 to be used as an annexe for patients recovering from operations and long illnesses.. less than a year later, it 9and its parent hospital the County) became part of the NHS.

It remained a convalescent hospital until 1971, when it changed to become a psychiatric hospital and operated as an annexe to Naburn Hospital. It closed at the end of October, 1976.

NEXT WEEK: Fulford, Naburn, St Mary's and Yearsley Bridge hospitals