14th August 2026

Tracing the history of buildings

Susan Major writes

David Olusoga’s latest series of A House Through Time features a house in Edinburgh, and is as riveting as ever, do try and watch it. He brings the past to life, finding out the stories of people living under the same roof, decades apart.

His first series, based on a Liverpool house, appeared in 2018, and at that time I was already working on a similar approach for a book about shop histories on Bishy Road. I attracted funding from our local traders’ association, the Micklegate Ward Fund, the Noel Goddard Terry Charitable Trust and the Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society (YAYAS). This meant that proceeds from sales could go into a book fund for the next book. As a result we’ve had the funding in place for a good print run of each of our subsequent books, which capture the history of our local communities.

Our book Bishy Road: a York shopping street in time, was published in 2018, and proved to be very popular. As a result I researched and wrote Shadows in the Bricks: the old shops of South Bank in York, which we published in 2019.

Since then we’ve published four more books. Nunnery Lane and Clementhorpe: exploring old shops and pubs in York came out in 2021, and was judged joint winner of the best Community Publication in 2021, in the national CILIP Alan Ball Local History Awards.

Our next book was Made in Clementhorpe: exploring York’s industrial history (2022), researched and written by Group members, John Stevens and Mave Morris.

Three of these books are already sold out, and we've had good support for this from our local traders. Over the last two years I’ve been able to draw upon growing research help from colleagues, some experienced and others learning new skills in tracing the history of buildings and their occupants. In 2024 we published Bishophill and Skeldergate: exploring old shops, pubs and industries in York, and last year Micklegate: the Great Street of York. For details of stockists follow this link.

This year I’ve been helped again by a hard-working team of researchers, and we’ll be launching our seventh book in October, Blossom Street: the Royal entrance to York.

This will be the last book in this series, for two reasons. Firstly we’ve more or less covered trading and historic buildings in the whole of our area. Secondly and importantly I’ve decided to retire from the Group early next year and focus on my railway research. Scoria bricks may just get a look in too! Our book programme has been a tremendous amount of work, not just research and writing, but taking books through publication and looking after promotion, distribution and invoicing. Since we started in 2013, I’ve also looked after our website and social media, writing most of the blog posts. I'm hoping that other members will take over this role. I've had a tremendous time over the last 13 years, learning all sorts of skills. Clements Hall Local History Group has developed an impressive reputation since it was launched in 2013, for its research, its projects and programme of talks, and I trust that new people will be able to continue our tasks.