BAR Talk was delighted to learn this week that the march of the corporate pub vandals has been slowed - thanks to an initiative pioneered in York a generation ago.

The Campaign For Real Ale (CAMRA) has just released the third version of its National Inventory of outstanding historic pub interiors.

Of more than 60,000 pubs in the UK, only 250 have insides of historic worth. However, Dave Gamston, chairman of CAMRA's pub heritage group and editor of the inventory, said the wreckers were becoming more restrained.

Dave, who lives and works in York, said that it was city CAMRA members back in the Seventies and Eighties who began taking an interest in conserving historic pubs. Their heritage list developed more recently into the National Inventory, which is sent to pub companies and planning officers in the UK.

Three York pub interiors have remained untouched for long enough to make it on to the National Inventory: the Blue Bell, Fossgate, The Swan, Clementhorpe, and the Golden Ball, Cromwell Road.

Swan landlady Rachel Haworth said she was delighted the pub was included. "We hope that increasing interest in the preservation of original interiors will deter over-enthusiastic developers from destroying any more original and unique pubs," she said.

The National Inventory is crucial in that task. But more work needs to be done to drive the message home, says Dave.

"Planning authorities may not be as aware as they should be about the importance of some of these interiors. We hope that they will use the inventory as a resource in making their judgements."

And the Government must come good on its promise to conserve the built environment, he said.

We'll drink to that (at any of the three York pubs listed; they're all wonderful).

The CAMRA National Inventory of pub interiors of outstanding historic interest is available from CAMRA, priced £2.50. See www.camra.org.uk for details.

u A HARROGATE pub is lining up 100 different beers from across Yorkshire to celebrate the Great Yorkshire Show.

The Winter Gardens in Harrogate is staging its own beer festival from Monday to Saturday next week, with all beers priced at £1.29.

The Wetherspoon pub at The Royal Baths in Parliament Street is sourcing the beers from 20 breweries, large and small, in Yorkshire.

Among the beers on offer will be Daleside Monkey Wrench, Black Sheep Special and Kelham Island Pale Rider.

u IT was a sadly depleted number of ghost hunters that convened at York Brewery in search of otherworldy spirits the other night, people having dropped out due to, ahem, "unforeseen circumstances".

Our spirits bolstered by Centurion's Ghost Ale, Bar Talk waited to see if anything would go bump in the night.

An array of unusual noises were discounted - fridges and cisterns sound very unsettling in the small hours to nervous people.

Then Bar Talk ventured to walk the allegedly haunted passageway. Finding nothing, we turned to rejoin the rest of the party upstairs... only to find a ghostly figure standing between us and the door.

Rather than the friendly shape of the ghostly Terrier that is said to haunt the York Brewer (after which the bitter is named) it was a tall man dressed in black who moved as soon as we did.

A ghostly spirit or just nerves and shadows? According to the staff (namely Vicki) this figure is a regular visitor to the brewing area and the gallery.

We leave you to make up your own minds, but during a seance, a medium claimed that out on the gallery was James, a rich, unpleasant man wearing late Georgian or early-Victorian dress.

In 1814, a House of Correction was opened in the angle of the wall at the other side of Toft Green, according to Knight's, A History Of The City Of York. The governor at the time was a Mr Gawthop or Gawthorp, James to his friends...

Updated: 08:59 Saturday, July 05, 2003