IF you've ever walked the city walls from Monk Bar down to Jewbury and Peasholme Green you'll have noticed, looking down from the walls beside St Maurice's Road, an odd red-brick construction that looks a bit like a giant clay beehive, or else an old kiln used for baking bricks.

It is neither. In fact, this is a Georgian ice house, dating from about 1800. It would have been used for storing ice collected in winter. The cool interior of the ice house then kept the ice frozen, so that it could be brought out and used in the summer time.

We have been rummaging around amongst our archives, and managed to dig out a couple of wonderful photos of the ice house taken in 1977 (photos 1 and 2 on these pages). There seems to have been some kind of repair or restoration work going on - the captions to the photos don't say exactly what - but one of the pictures gives a rare glimpse of the inside of the ice house. The photographer is actually standing inside, while a workman looks in.

It was clearly a very well-constructed building. We don't know who it belonged to, but someone obviously went to great lengths to ensure a supply of cooling ice in the hot summer months.

We'd love to hear from anyone who knows more about the ice house - who built it, who owned it, when it stopped being used, all that kind of stuff. Meanwhile, if you want to have a look at it yourself, be warned. You won't be able to see it from the car - it is hidden by buildings as you drive past on St Maurice's Road. The best way is probably to take a walk along that stretch of the city walls between Monk Bar and Peasholme Green. Then you can't miss it...

We dug out a few more assorted photographs from our archives at the same time as the ones of the ice house. They show:

3. Viking warriors in full battle dress for the 1986 Jorvik Viking Festival. This must have been from the early days of the festival - Jorvik itself didn't open until April 1984. But you certainly wouldn't have wanted to mess with the bloke in the middle: that full iron face mask with its down-turned mouth is pretty intimidating. We wonder how this warrior would have squared up to today's generation of Viking re-enactors. The two police officers flanking him seem to agree he was pretty fearsome - you'll notice they are keeping their distance...

4.Bookmakers setting up their umbrellas at a misty, drizzly Knavesmire on August 20, 1970. There's something very British about this photo. It has all the plucky optimism of holidaymakers determined to have a good time on a rainy bank holiday. And it reminds us of the weather we've all been putting up with recently

5. There's a mystery to our final photo. Taken in 1969, it shows smoke issuing from the chimneys of York's medieval Guildhall. 'Each day at 1pm smoke puffs from the Guildhall', says the caption. It was presumably a ritual of some kind. Does anyone remember what?

Stephen Lewis