LAYERTHORPE has changed almost beyond recognition over the centuries.

From medieval times when the area was dominated by King’s Pool, a large lake that served almost as part of the city’s defences, to the 18th and 19th centuries when it was part of the beating heart of industrialised York.

Changes began in the the 18th century when the King's Pool begun to silt up and in the mid 19th century when small industries such as potteries and brick kilns opened.

The York Gas Light Company was set up on the west side of the Foss in the 1820s. By the end of the 1800s Foss Islands Road had been created, the gas works had been expanded, and the power station and refuse destructor had been built. The Foss Islands railway branch connected most of these industries to the rail network.

From the mid-late 1900s the gas works site went through several periods of expansion and re-organisation until it closed in the 1970s.

Most of the terraced streets, home to generations of York people, were demolished between the 1950s and 1970s, along with the pubs and shops which had served them.

Share your memories

For more old photos of York, do visit the city council’s Explore York archive (images.exploreyork.org.uk).

If you love looking at old photos of York, make sure to buy The Press every Wednesday for our weekly nostalgia supplement and join us in our Facebook group, Why We Love York - Memories. Join us at www.facebook.com/groups/yorknostalgia/.

And if you have memories of Layerthorpe - and old photos - we'd love to hear from you directly.

Please drop us an email with your story - and any old images you may have in your photo albums.

We would love to share your stories and photos with readers.

Please get it touch via email: maxine.gordon@thepress.co.uk.