Monday, March 7, 2005

100 years ago: Some work had been carried out to improve the Bootham and Clifton Green areas of the city. The Green was enclosed with a neatly painted railing and "looks vastly improved in its present condition", but there was a worry that if the suggested alterations to make it into a park were carried out there would be nowhere for the November 5 celebrations to take place. The large trees had also been removed from the end of the field nearest the roadway in Bootham Park, giving a better view of the handsome asylum building.

50 years ago: When the Lord Mayor of York and the President of the National Farmers' Union arrived at the Castle Museum at the end of the month to perform their joint opening of the new agricultural gallery, they would find two pitchforks awaiting them. They would need these rural implements in order to take part in the novel opening ceremony which had been arranged. Two corn stooks would be placed across the entrance to the gallery, "a remarkable representation of an old barn", and these would be ceremoniously removed by the openers' pitchfork. Final arrangements were also going forward for the provision of the automatic playback tape recordings of genuine Yorkshire dialect. Before the opening museum staff would go out and about in the three Ridings, taking with them ten drawings of some of the familiar objects of the farm and countryside, which the dialect speakers would be asked to record their own words for. In addition it was hoped to record a little "free speech", such as an dialect anecdote of the speaker's choosing, and later on it was hoped that seasonal recordings would be added such as descriptions of pace-egging celebrations, mummers' plays and harvest suppers.

25 years ago: The wall covering of a room at York Art Gallery was to be replaced at the cost of £600, as the present bright pink was deemed inappropriate for a new collection. Although the gallery's works of nudes and other paintings William Etty looked good "in the pink", the collection from The British Sporting Art Trust wouldn't be suited to such a background. Etty's work would be moved to another part of the gallery when the new exhibition arrived, which was of 17th, 18th and early 19th century sporting pictures, and said to be the most important of its type outside of London.

Updated: 12:40 Saturday, March 05, 2005