(Image: The Press)
It’s dangerously easy to get lost in The Press archives where there are some incredible photographs of old York, many of which haven’t seen the light of day for quite some time.
Watering holes feature in this latest collection after a rummage unearthed a selection of images that showcased bygone days when many York pubs were more than just a place for a pint.
These venues were often used as a coaching stop, a brewery tap, a meeting hall, a departure point for a day out, or simply the welcoming meeting point for a neighbourhood.
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These Press archive photographs offer glimpses of that vanished world, from the Wheatsheaf Inn in Hungate, and the Coach and Horses in Swinegate and Jubbergate, to the centuries-old Black Swan at Peasholme Green and the Red Lion Inn in Haxby.
The Wheatsheaf Inn and Forage Warehouse in Hungate. (Image: The Press)
The Wheatsheaf stood in Hungate, now home to apartment blocks but once a working-class quarter of York crowded with workshops, warehouses and small industries around the River Ross. Directory evidence records a Wheatsheaf in Hungate from at least the 19th century.
The old Coach and Horses Inn on the corner of Swinegate and Back Swinegate in York. (Image: The Press)
Across the city, the Coach and Horses in Swinegate belonged to York’s long coaching tradition. A pub on the site was recorded as early as 1740, and its association with coach travel survived into the 20th century. Locals called it the Big Coach, distinguishing it from the Coach and Horses in Micklegate, the Little Coach. The Swinegate pub closed in the late 1970s and the building later became a shop.
The Coach and Horses in Jubbergate was a separate establishment, but it too was linked to the days of horse-drawn travel - though by the 1965 date of the photograph, the age of the coach had long passed. The pub was also a key part of the city’s social scene; in 1946, it hosted meetings that led to the formation of the York branch of the Royal Air Forces Association.
The old Coach and Horses pub in Jubbergate, York, pictured in 1965. (Image: The Press)
At Peasholme Green, the Black Swan provided a suitably historic setting for a charabanc outing. Research shows the building dates back to the 15th century, and was altered over subsequent centuries. It was associated with prominent York families, including the Thompsons before later becoming the Black Swan pub.
Charabanc outing from the Black Swan pub in Peasholme Green, York. (Image: The Press)
Its old walls witnessed generations of customers setting off for seaside trips, country excursions and the sort of communal day out now preserved mostly in photographs.
The Red Lion at Haxby, undated. (Image: The Press)
And beyond the city, the Red Lion in Haxby represented the village pub at the heart of local life.
Its precise history remains harder to trace, but the image clearly shows a now-familiar name, a well-known meeting place and a community gathered around.
Pubs come and go, change their names or find a new lease of life but these nostalgic photos help ensure that memories of them, and the role they played in city life, stay alive.