Nostalgia: Life meanders on... down by the Yorkshire riverside

Our collection of rarely-seen photographs of some of the county’s best-loved riverside locations encapsulates nearly a century and a half of life on the water’s edge. The timeline begins on Skeldergate in York, where an early photographer has captured the view towards the Ouse Bridge. In the middleground, the old warehouses cling to the riverbank and a woman poses awkwardly with her basket.

The scene could not be more different to the aerial view of Hull in its industrial heyday, before the Second World War, as the smoke from 100 factory chimneys rises above the gasometers. Barely any remain, but the River Hull winds through the city and the Old Town as ever it did, on its way to the Humber.

Further inland on the Leeds waterfront, coal is delivered by barge en route to the new electricity generating stations at Kirkstall and Crown Point. The Aire and adjacent canal were important conduits too for stone, timber, grain and potatoes.

By contrast, in Staithes, the presence of washing hanging outside the cottages strung along the beck is almost the only evidence that the picture was taken 70 years ago. And but for a few signs outside the shops, the view from 1960 of the River Nidd at Knaresborough, one of the most photographed in the county, might almost have been taken last summer.

Yet none are more timeless than the stepping stones across the Wharfe at Bolton Abbey, or the hump-backed bridge at Gunnerside in Swaledale. The boy watching for trout there will be drawing his pension now.

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James Mitchinson, Editor