RECOGNISE this view?
It’s the gasometer in the foreground that is the giveaway.
The photograph was
taken by the York Health Department some time in
the 1930s, presumably
ahead of a planned
programme of slum
clearance, and it shows the view across Layerthorpe.
The city wall at Jewbury
can be seen at the top right of the photograph.
Below that, beside the
River Foss, is Foss Bank, where Sainsbury’s now stands.
Peaseholme Green runs off into the distance in the top centre of the photograph, and below that you can
make out people standing
on Layerthorpe Bridge,
although the bridge looks very different from the remodelled version we are familiar with today.
Most of the closely-
packed buildings huddled in the centre of the photo - a mix of terraced streets,
pubs and shops - are long gone.
They were demolished in the 1950s and 1960s, and today their place has been taken by small industrial and commercial properties - a garage, a carpet shop, and more.
According to a City of York Council “character study” of
Layerthorpe, The York Gas Light Company
originally set up on the west side of the River Foss, close to Heworth Green, in the 1820s.
From the mid-1900s
onwards the gasworks site went through several
periods of expansion and
re-organisation until it
eventually closed in the 1970s.
Part of the gasworks site
is now being used for
housing.
This photograph is one of thousands held on Explore York Library and Archives’ wonderful Imagine York website.
You can view the original for yourself, and browse through thousands of other historic images of York, by visiting the website
imagineyork.co.uk/
Stephen Lewis
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