WE have an amazing ability to just accept things.

It is quite extraordinary that one of the most important historic sites in York - Clifford's Tower - is surrounded by an ugly municipal car park. It should never have been allowed to happen. But we just accept it, because - well, because it has always been that way.

Except that it hasn't. The car park was little more than an accident. For 100 years, between 1835 and 1935, the whole area around Clifford's Tower was occupied by a grim Victorian prison. Prison blocks radiated out from a central administrative hub like spokes from a wheel, and the whole thing was hidden from public view by a forbidding wall which enclosed both the prison and Clifford's Tower itself. York's castle was hidden from general view behind these walls.

In 1935 the Victorian prison was demolished. York council decided to build itself a smart new headquarters between Clifford's Tower and the River Foss, and even laid the foundations. Then the Second World War got in the way, the money ran out, and the plans for a new council HQ were abandoned. People began using the land next to Clifford's Tower as a temporary car park... and that's what it has been used for ever since.

Probably not for much longer, though. Under ambitious plans to regenerate the whole of the Castle/ Piccadilly area, the car park will be swept away, and replaced by a public open space. Parking will move to a new multi-storey car park at St George's Field, linked to the city centre by a new pedestrian crossing across the inner ring road.

Another former car park, at Castle Mills across the river on Piccadilly, is to be replaced by flats. A new pedestrian and cycle bridge will run from there across the Foss to the Eye of York.

Just what kind of public space will eventually emerge on what is now the Castle car park isn't yet clear. It will probably include grass and trees and gardens, and very likely a space for events and performances. All the weekend just gone, a team from the My Castle Gateway consultation group has been leading groups of interested people on guided walks around the area to hear from them exactly what kind of public space they would like to see here. But one thing is for sure: the appearance of this historic part of York will soon be changing dramatically.

But then, it has changed many times in the past. The Romans built a fort and later a city in York because they decided the tongue of land between the Foss and the Ouse where Clifford's Tower now stands would be a great place for a port. The remains of Roman jetties, wharves and warehouses have been found, south of the main Roman fortress about where the Minster now is.

In Saxon times, there is evidence of a settlement at the point where the Foss and Ouse meet. And we all know about the Viking city of Jorvik.

The Normans didn't fail to spot the potential of the site, either. William the Conqueror had two castles built, one on either side of the Ouse - at Baile hill to the west, and on the site where Clifford's Tower now stands to the east. That eastern castle was rebuilt in stone between 1244 and 1264, with Clifford's Tower as the keep, and a large bailey taking in what is now the Eye of York (the remains of the bailey walls can be seen from the inner ring-road).

Clifford's Tower was the scene of the notorious 'massacre of the Jews' in 1190: and 100 years later, King Edward 1 used York Castle as his base of operations against the Scots, and briefly moved his seat of government here. The castle was also one of the headquarters of Royalist forces during the Civil War in the 1640s.

By the 17th century, the area around the Eye of York had become a centre for the administration of justice, and in the 1700s a succession of court buildings sprang up, today's crown court and the buildings now occupied by the Castle Museum among them. The Victorian prison was built between 1826 and 1835, and remained n place for another 100 years.

So, Clifford's Tower, the Eye of York and the Castle car park between them make up a hugely important and historic part of York - one that has changed constantly over the centuries.

Our photos on these pages today, which are reproduced courtesy of Explore York, York Museums Trust, the Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society (YAYAS) and our own archives, give a sense of just how much the area has changed in the last 100 years or so.

Now a new chapter in the history of this part of York is about to begin...

Stephen Lewis