HOB Moor does not have the obvious appeal of a purpose-built park. Neither is it as rugged as a windswept hill farm. It is, as Elizabeth Smith concedes, "apparently very flat and featureless".

But there is a quiet magic here. The 90 acres of grassland, bordered by hawthorn hedgerows, is home to hundreds of plants, birds and insects. It is an unspoilt oasis in the midst of busy suburban York, accessed either from the Edmund Wilson Swimming Baths or opposite the Tyburn on Tadcaster Road.

If Hob Moor could speak, it would have a long tale to tell. Elizabeth's comprehensive new book traces its history back to the last Ice Age. Since then it has hosted the Romans, a watermill, Scots soldiers from the Siege of York, brickmakers and a golf course.

In Easter last year, the untouched status of Hob Moor was recognised when it was named as York's second Local Nature Reserve.

That was a triumph for the Friends Of Hob Moor. And so is their book, Hob Moor: Historic Stray And Nature Reserve. Written by Elizabeth, chair of the Friends, it is the result of four years of teamwork by the committee.

Lavishly illustrated, the book charts the history of the area before examining the diversity of its ecology.

There is much to interest history buffs within the pages. Elizabeth speculates that a footpath which crosses the fields heading straight for the centre of York was of Roman origin.

Later it became part of Micklegate Stray. No one knows quite how the strays, or commons, of York developed, or how they were managed through the Middle Ages. But we do know Hob Moor was used for centuries by "pasturing freemen" to feed their livestock.

Only once, during the Napoleonic Wars, was the moor set to arable farming.

The north-east corner of Hob Moor once boasted a water-mill. It was first documented in 1563 as "Hobmylne", later referred to as Folly Mylne. Folly could be a corruption of fulling "in which case the water-mill may have been used for fulling, ie cleansing and thickening cloth, but in 1605 it was in use for the grinding of corn," Elizabeth writes.

She goes on to chronicle Hob Moor's long role as a place of exile. Civic records show that money was set aside in 1549-50 to build two lodges for plague victims there, in order to protect the city.

Half a century later and the bubonic plague had a grip on York. The outbreak was to kill 3,500 city residents, almost a third of the population. Three York plague lodges were set up, in the Horsefair, roughly where Gillygate is now; at Clementhorpe; and on Hob Moor.

More light is shed on the role of the lodges in the biography of Thomas Morton, pastor of Long Marston.

He was in York during "that great and funebrious sickness of the Plague at York, whereof some thousands dyed; but the poorer sort of the infected were turned out of the city and had booths erected on Hob Moor, neer unto the city; for whose comfort and reliefe, in that fatall extremity, Mr Morton often repaired unto them from Marston to preach unto them the Word of God, and to minister consolation to their languishing soules; having withall provisions of meat carrie with him in Sacks, to relieve the poorest sort withall".

A plague stone was later rediscovered on Hob Moor. It bears a shallow basin in its centre. "It seems highly likely that money to pay for food brought out from the city was placed here, in water or vinegar as a disinfectant, by plague victims or those looking after them," writes Elizabeth.

"By the time plague victims, perhaps with other family members, had been carried in great pain almost a mile out of town from Micklegate Bar, and then even further away from all habitation down Hoblaine and into a remote corner of a large common, they must have felt truly exiled and hopeless. Thomas Morton's visits would have been immeasurably appreciated."

The burial register of St Margaret's, York, contains the names of eight people who died of the plague on Hob Moor, and were buried there.

Reminiscences about Hob Moor in more recent, happier times, are included at the end of the book.

"One youngster used to gather bullrushes at Christmas and take them to a chemist in Gale Lane who would pay half a crown for 12 and use the fluff inside as a snow effect to decorate the shop windows," Elizabeth writes.

"In the spring, the children used to collect frogspawn and take it home in jam jars. Later on, there would be thousands of tiny frogs, thumbnail size, which would abound on the paths.

"One lad used to sail on the pond in an old iron bathtub; sometimes waterhens' eggs would be taken and cooked to eat."

As another resident put it: "Hob Moor for me in boyhood days was a place of magic, for the sun always shone and the sky was always blue, or so it seemed, over Hob Moor."

Hob Moor: Historic Stray And Local Nature Reserve by Elizabeth A Smith is published by the Friends of Hob Moor. From the end of this week it will be available in York libraries and other outlets, price £7.50

Blake Street memories

AFTER reading our piece about the bombing of Blake Street last week, and studying the picture which illustrated it, Doris Simpson got in touch.

Mrs Simpson, 82, of Stockton-on-the-Forest, once worked in one of the shops badly damaged in the April 1942 German air raid.

She worked in Betty's, not the caf but a clothing and bridal oufitters. Mrs Simpson also remembered other shops in the picture. These included Kettlestring the greengrocers, and one at the right hand side of the photograph which sold produce from Kay and Backhouse's nursery.

Mrs Simpson started work at the shop straight from school, aged 14. She said you went through a vestibule to reach the main store which stretched way back.

At the time of the raid, she lived in Heworth. The message got through to her that the shop was hit and closed. It never reopened. The owner decided to concentrate instead on his Scarborough shop.

Mrs Simpson went on to work at Cooke, Troughton and Simms at Bishophill. And when she ran a grocery shop on Hull Road, she used skills learnt at Bettys to win a competition for the best dressed window.

Updated: 09:30 Monday, November 15, 2004