York's Mansion House is back to its best. As our pictures last week showed, the £314,000 refit has returned this most important building to its original splendour.

It is right that we keep the house in order. This is not only the Lord Mayor of York's residence, and the place where he entertains our most distinguished guests. It is also the first such building in the country. London's Mansion House was built many years later.

Mr Darcy Preston, York Town Clerk, originally suggested that it be constructed as a repository for the city's records in 1724. The notion that the Lord Mayor might use some rooms for official business was added as an afterthought.

By the time the proposal had been approved by the Corporation, the original idea was lost. The Mansion House was built in 1726 purely as the Lord Mayor's official residence.

The chapel of the Gild of St Christopher, by then a private house, stood on the corner of Coney Street and Common Hall Lane. It belonged to the Corporation and was pulled down to make way for the new building.

By good fortune, this was a position of great historical significance as Charles Knight noted in his history of York.

"A few yards away from the entrance to this residence of York's chief magistrate had stood the Praetorian Gate of the Roman fortress of Eboracum," he wrote.

"The Mansion House stands on the very portals of York's most ancient fame; it thus links the city's great past with her virile present and is a constant symbol to every understanding citizen of the city's age-long dignity and fadeless glory."

Citizens who understand this better than most are those who work in the Mansion House.

One man who spent much of his working life there was James William Westerby. He is on the far left in our picture, which shows a formal reception on the steps of the Lord Mayor's residence.

It was loaned to us by Mr Westerby's grand-daughter Ada Russell, 85. She believes the photograph was taken when she was about seven.

"He had always been in service," she said. "He used to be at the Judge's Lodgings at times when the assizes were on. As a child I always wanted to go to the assizes. He said, 'you are not going as long as I am able to stop you'. I didn't ask again - not like today's children."

Her grandfather normally wore a bow tie and tail suit to work. One of his duties was to wait on tables at banquets and serve drinks at receptions.

In the photograph he is in his ceremonial apparel, worn for the visit of dignitaries. "The only time they wore that, as far as I can remember, was when the two of them were on the back of the coach," recalls Mrs Russell.

This horse-drawn carriage would take the Lord Mayor and his guests to and from events in York.

The sword and mace bearers are prominent in the picture. City historian Hugh Murray was able to identify them.

The sword bearer is Arthur Frederick Wright, and the mace bearer is William James Wilson. He served in the Scots Greys and was known by the inevitable nickname Jock.

From this information it is possible to make an informed guess that the photograph was taken in about 1922. Mrs Russell said her grandfather and his wife Mildred had a lucky escape in the First World War. One of the bombs dropped by the German Zeppelins landed in their garden in Nunthorpe Road.

She recalled: "They took them out of the house for a while. In those days, nobody would have even attempted to rob anybody."

Mrs Russell's father was also called James William. He was a tinsmith. "He would give anybody in the family that was getting married a wedding present of baking tins, roasting tins, pans - anything they needed."

She married a different sort of craftsmen. Harold Russell was a signwriter, painter and decorator.

PICTURE: Ada Russell's grandfather, James William Westerby, is on the far left of this picture, which is believed to have been taken at the Mansion House in 1922.