York Cattle Market,

1914: although the animals seen penned up here are not cattle, but horses ‘called up’ to go to war.

Cavalry played a part in almost every war fought before 1914. They were even used in some early battles in the First World War, until a combination of the barbed wire and mud in no man’s land and the slaughter inflicted by enemy machine guns convinced even the British high command that men mounted on horseback were no match for modern weapons.

Even then, horses continued to play an important part in the war. They hauled heavy equipment through the mud; helped pull free tanks and other vehicles that had got stuck; delivered food to the front line; and pulled ambulances carrying the wounded back from the front. Probably very few of the animals seen peacefully eating hay here would have survived the carnage.

The photograph, which comes from Explore York Library’s wonderful Imagine York archive, shows the cattle market from the city walls outside Walmgate. The terraced houses are in Barbican Road, the large building on the far right of the photograph beyond the cattle market is Fishergate School and the road in the foreground is Paragon Street. Today the new Co-op shop and the Barbican are off the right edge of the photo.

Stephen Lewis