York street once known for 'destitute prostitutes' - photo

We're taking you back more than 100 years to the Walmgate of around 1900.

On the right we can just make out the graveyard of St Denys Church with the old prison walls just visible and the terraced houses are the Plows Rectory buildings.

The photo - from the excellent City of York Council archive Explore York (images.exploreyork.org.uk) - shows the Walmgate end of old Piccadilly which is now known as St Denys Road.

According to F Finnegan's 1979 book Poverty and Prostitution: A Study of Victorian Prostitutes in York the Plows Rectory buildings constituted an "unwholesome terrace amongst which there were a small number of ‘houses of ill fame’ such as ‘Todds’ and ‘Mrs Varley’s’. Several diseased and destitute prostitutes entered the workhouse from this address".

Ordnance survey maps of York suggest the Plows Rectory buildings were demolished  probably between 1937 and 1938 as part of a slum clearance programme.

On the site in the late 1930s was built Swinson House, the former tax office, which is now being demolished to make way for a hotel. 

And while work continues to demolish Swinson House, the former tax office in Piccadilly, just next to Spark, you can catch a rare view of St Denys church from Piccadilly.

Rare view of St Denys Church as Swinson House - former site of Plows Rectory buildings - is demolished. Photo by Paolo Sunda (Image: Paolo Sunda)

The former tax office is being demolished to make way for a new 132-room hotel - and as the demolition works continue, a new view of the church can be seen. For a while, at least.

For more old photos of York, join our Facebook group, Why We Love York - Memories at www.facebook.com/groups/yorknostalgia.

Also, don't miss our eight-page Nostalgia supplement in The Press every Weddnesday.