BEER and music lovers were given the perfect Christmas present on Christmas Eve when one of the city’s oldest (and most haunted) pubs re-opened for business.

The Black Swan, in Peasholme Green, is a largely 17th century building on the site of an even earlier, medieval inn.

Peaseholme Green itself is reportedly so named because it was once a water meadow where peas were grown. The building that was eventually to become the Black Swan seems to have been originally built as a family home in about 1417 when, according to the City of York Council’s Imagine York website, it was the home of the merchant William Bowes. Bowes was Sheriff of York in 1417 and Lord Mayor in 1428.

In the 18th century, the website continues, the inn – presumably the building we now have today – was home to the parents of General James Wolfe, who “won Canada for Britain”.

He actually led a victorious assault on the French at Quebec in 1759 which, though he died from gunshots to his chest, paved the way for British control of Canada.

The Black Swan, as well as being one of York’s oldest pubs, is also reputedly one of its most haunted. The numerous ghosts said to frequent the building include a Victorian workman in a bowler hat, and a pair of legs without a body that walk around the landlord’s private quarters.

Our main picture today dates back to the 1910s, and shows a charabanc trip setting out from the inn. Fred Wright, the landlord at the time, is the gent in the trilby hat standing in the foreground with his hand on his hip.

One of the signs on the pub in this photo indicates that it was the headquarters of the Layerthorpe Cycling Club, founded in 1894. We’ve included for good measure a photo of members of the club, taken some time in the early 1900s.

Despite coming from some of the poorest area of York, they are all immaculately turned out in collars, ties and flat caps.

Other pictures show the Black Swan in the 1880s (with horse- drawn cart outside) and 1890s (with an unknown man leaning against the wall).

By the 1930s, when one of these photos was taken, the more familiar black-and-white pub we know today was beginning to appear – here partly hidden behind a police box that may just belong to Dr Who.


* Pictures reproduced courtesy of the City of York Council’s Imagine York website, www.imagineyork.co.uk