YORK’S Leeman Road area is set to change dramatically over the next couple of decades, thanks to the massive York Central development.

The redevelopment of the huge area of derelict railway sidings and former carriagework buildings behind the railway station will transform York.

But it will also have a huge impact on those living in and around Leeman Road.

That has been made very clear through the row over the closure of the road to allow the National Railway Museum (NRM) to spread across it.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps recently overrode the objections of locals to give the York Central Partnership, which is managing the development of the huge site, permission to close the road when the times comes, so the museum can build a new central gallery.

It is a row that is not going to go away: and it will only intensify once work begins in earnest.

The Leeman Road area has always been a busy, bustling part of York. It was, for a long time, dominated by the huge carriageworks that neighboured it.

York Press:

Railway lines near Leeman Road in the 1970s. Image: Explore York Libraries and Archives

There was also the GPO sorting office, conveniently sited near the railway station.

But this has always been a strong community, too, of neat Victorian terraces and newer developments such as the St Peter’s Quarter.

We’ve been rooting around in our archives to find a selection of photos - some taken by Press photographers, others contributed by the newspaper’s readers - showing the area through the ages.

We also found a few wonderful photos on Explore York’s digital image archive.

We particularly love the contrasting images of a horse drawn cart passing underneath the Leeman Road railway bridge in the 1890s - and a lorry, more than a century later, getting firmly stuck.

Progress, eh?

 York Press:

York Press: