York is a city that has been captured in countless images, and many of these are held at Explore York Archives. Through these photographs, illustrations, maps, and archival documents you can walk forgotten streets, visit the old city centre slums, find out about York’s stained glass history, view key events, and learn more about the people who lived in our city and the surrounding area.
Such a fantastic, ever-growing collection certainly deserves widespread attention, and so we have launched a new website to celebrate York’s visual history. Explore York Images replaces Imagine York (our previous image portal) and offers three key improvements.
Evolving Content
This website has been designed to accommodate a collection that is always growing. In addition to the images already online, we have thousands that have never been visible to the public before. We are working hard to prepare these images and will be uploading them in batches. You can easily keep an eye on new additions by navigating to the ‘Recently Added’ page.
Army Picture Postcard from Private F J Pond to the Lord Mayor and Sheriff of York, 8 January 1915 / Y-ADM-4-2-1-165-2 (c) City of York Council / Explore York Libraries and Archives Mutual Ltd 
Telephone Exchange, York / y384_6_02 (c) City of York Council / Explore York Libraries and Archives Mutual Ltd 
Glass plate negative ‘Head of a bishop, St Denys, York’, c.1900 / KNO/24/1139/3 (c) City of York Council / Explore York Libraries and Archives Mutual Ltd 
Official opening of York City Trams, 20 January 1910 / y98_a (c) City of York Council / Explore York Libraries and Archives Mutual Ltd 
Three women taking part in the International Sheepdog Trials on the Knavesmire, September 1923. / y97_6862_f (c) City of York Council / Explore York Libraries and Archives Mutual Ltd 
Hand tinted view of the River Ouse, c.1900 / y_11203 (c) City of York Council / Explore York Libraries and Archives Mutual Ltd 
Hand tinted view of the River Ouse, c.1900 / y_11203 (c) City of York Council / Explore York Libraries and Archives Mutual Ltd
Site Navigation
With a new controlled vocabulary and improved metadata, it should now be easier for you to find specific images. You can use the search bar to specify a keyword, such as ‘boat’, and then select categories to narrow down the results.
You can also create ‘Lightboxes’, which function like pin boards for you to collect images as you search. For example, if you were researching York’s Adult Schools you might create a Lightbox with the same title and collect all relevant images to return to later.
y374_32 (c) Copyright: Explore York Libraries and Archives / City of York Council 2020.
Easy and Immediate Purchase
Many users will want to reproduce images on their websites, blogs, printed materials, and so on. The new website makes it easy to calculate costs according to your intended usage. You can also purchase images directly from the website, so downloading and using assets will be a fast and simple process. Every purchase you make will support us in our mission to preserve York’s archival heritage and promote it to future generations.
Click here to explore the new website. We hope you enjoy diving into York’s history!
y_11580 (c) Copyright: City of York Council / Explore York Libraries and Archives Mutual Ltd
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