LANCASTER - A History, by Andrew White. Phillimore, £17.99.

THE well-known head of Lancaster City Museums, Andrew White, has poured his considerable knowledge of the city’s history into a beautifully illustrated book.

Instead of taking the reader through a chronological story of Lancaster, Dr White uses different themes to great effect.

The book opens with a chapter called “where do you come from?” which looks at all the different people who have come to live in the city through the centuries. Dr White concludes that most of the incoming groups would rarely have had Lancaster in mind as their original destination, and many would have arrived via other places. Today there are three main minority ethnic groups in the city – Germans, Poles and Indians.

A chapter on “priory and castle” explores the two great city landmarks and there is even a list of executions at Lancaster Castle – the last of which did not take place until 1910.

Included is a fascinating selection of photographs and illustrations, such as a circus parade with elephants which wound its way through the city centre in the 1890s, and a snapshot of a yard which captures how a large part of the poorest population lived.