THE portrait has been in the public domain for some time, and it shows the rear of Commercial Street from the Malton side of the river.
Developments here have obscured the present-day view.
The original church can be seen perched on the top of the river bank.
In 1845, the North Midland Railway Company would build their Scarborough branch line on a viaduct below that river banking, then sixty or more years later the church would be demolished in favour of a new building in Langton Road.
The 1850 map shows the situation pre-demolition.
The river was a lot wider then than it is now and it therefore probably did not flood then as frequently as it does now.
Simplistic evidence for there being lesser flooding is the choice (in medieval times) of using the central Derwent Island as a location for an important building.
Before the railway came, transport of goods was mainly by river.
However, as we shall see later, the river was going to be narrowed but the new means of transport would compensate for this loss.
Eventually, in the early nineteen hundreds, it was decided to construct a swimming pool beyond the river-side wall of the old church, and to achieve this the viaduct would have to be filled in and the 'ox bow' section of river blocked off and diverted.
As a train traverses the 'filled in' viaduct section it should be possible to hear the difference in wheel sound as this happens....after all, the viaduct is still there and the rails are in contact with it.
The post-1925 situation is shown on the second map, along with a typical view of the (roofless) swimming pool.
The site of the church and its graveyard are consecrated ground but they were not always treated with respect.
The grass was often very long, and with an un-defined footpath up to the pool it was easy to trip over the remains of the old church wall which protruded inches out of the ground.
Nowadays, it is still probably very close to the soil surface.
At one time, there had been a way into the pool down the side of the Buckrose Inn.
In the nineteen eighties, the pool was upgraded and converted to its present (covered state.
Read next by Howard: Looking back at Malton’s Broughton Rise
Large quantities of concrete were necessary, however: the new tank needed considerable stabilisation because of its lying on a potentially unstable floor which was not of natural geology.
Howard Campion is a trustee at the Malton and Norton Heritage Centre.
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