THE new red-brick block of flats and townhouses on the site of York's old fire station on Clifford Street has begun to emerge from its wrappings. So we couldn't resist digging out a couple of old photos which show this site as it once was.

Clifford Street itself was apparently built in about 1881 to provide an alternative route from Nessgate to Skeldergate Bridge. The new route was needed to accommodate the new horse drawn tram service - the old route had been along narrow Castlegate and then Tower Street.

By 1890, as our first photo (1) shows, work was beginning on York's new law courts - what is today the magistrates court. The street developed quickly. By 1902, when our second photo (2) was taken, the ornate Victorian magistrates court was complete and looking as if it had stood there forever. The building to the left of the photo was the Peckitt Street Methodist Chapel, which was later replaced by the fire station. In the photo, both court building and chapel are plastered with advertising hoardings, as was common at this time in York's history.

Both these photographs come from the wonderful Imagine York archive kept by Explore York Libraries and Archives - as do the other photos on these pages today.

Two, both dating from 1933 (3 & 4), show the old Rowntree factory in Tanner's Moat. The factory dated from 1864, when Henry Isaac Rowntree, Joseph's older brother, bought the site of a disused iron foundry. Henry Isaac had begun his working life as an apprentice in the Tuke family shop in Walmgate. In 1862 he had bought out the Tuke family's chocolate, cocoa-making and chicory business, and ran the business himself, moving into his new factory in 1864. Henry Isaac was later joined in the business by his younger brother Joseph, who took it over when Henry died of peritonitis in 1883, aged just 45.

The Tanner's Moat factory remained the heart of the Rowntree chocolate business until Joseph bought 29 acres of land off Haxby Road in 1890 to build a new, larger factory.

Our final two photographs have nothing to do with either Clifford Street or Rowntree: we chose them simply because we liked them. They show:

5. A horse-drawn cart in Lawrence Street in 1863, pictured by an unknown photographer. The cart was obviously very heavy given the large number of horses required to pull it

6. Children playing near Monk Bridge, which carries the road to Scarborough and Heworth over the River Foss, in the early 1900s. A horse and carriage is passing the gas works which can be seen in the background. The building above the bridge on the left was, at one time, the Woodsman Inn.

Stephen Lewis

All the photos on these pages, and thousands more, are held on Explore York’s Imagine York archive. You can browse it yourself at imagineyork.co.uk/