Tours of Old York #4: An Artist Visits…

And now for a slightly different tour of old York – York as seen by a visiting artist.

In 1952 the curator of York Art Gallery – Hans Hess – approached L. S. Lowry to paint a scene of York for the annual Evelyn Award. For this Lowry would be awarded the princely sum of £50 or – in 2025 money – around £1,250.

In the end, Lowery was to paint three images of York; two he offered to the art gallery to select from – ‘Clifford’s Tower, York‘ and ‘A View of York (from Tang Hall Bridge)‘ – and a third – ‘Wilson’s Terrace‘ – that he sold on to a private collector.

Of the two images offered to York Art Gallery, they selected ‘Clifford’s Tower, York‘ which, as of writing, can currently be seen in one of the upper galleries.

‘Clifford’s Tower, York’

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Tours of Old York #2: The Streets of York, 1988 and Now

And, having found another old video of York on YouTube, it’s time for another Tour of Old York. Alas, the the YouTube video doesn’t seem to be embeddable on any old random website but – in better news – it does seem to be tagged with a permissive licence that allows me to rehost it here…

The streets of York in 1988, Russell Webster (Via Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed))
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Tours of Old York #1: 70s York in Flood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmGdiYRg7c8

York in flood during (apparently) the late 70s. At about 30 seconds in there’s a lovely shot of a very wet pre-flood defence Marygate. Later on, at around one minute forty, you get a shot along Wellington Row and across the River – notably showing the build that there before the construction of the General Accident (now Aviva) Building. There are also some nice shots of The Kings Arms and the bottom of the Museum Gardens in flood.