Turnstiles, Grosvenor Road end, 24 April 2022

At the end of the previous page, after looking at the clearance work on the Duncombe Barracks site, I said we were on our way to the library next. But on the way, turning from Burton Stone Lane onto Grosvenor Road, we pass Bootham Crescent, and it’s not really possible to ignore the fact — though in many ways I’d like to — that clearance work has started here too in the last couple of weeks.

In late afternoon sunshine there’s still a certain charm to the familiar red-painted turnstiles. Some of them, and the nearby gates, have been boarded over quite a few times, attempts to keep out young intruders who kept finding ways in.

Since the sale of the ground was completed, and in preparation for the demolition, security guards have been on site. Presumably in connection with that, lights above the turnstile gates were on again in the evenings. Odd to see that again, reminding me of evening games, queues here, supporters passing and laughing, police vans parked.

I think – I hope – that we all understand the cultural significance of old traditional football grounds like this one. And also that for fans of this particular club, the end of this one has been poignant and painful.

An excellent piece by Tony Cole in the Guardian describes the importance of Bootham Crescent from a fan’s perspective.

Dear old place. It looks so humble, small, unassuming, this part of the Grosvenor Road end. Hard to imagine the tall townhouses that will in due course be built here.

Inside the ground, in recent days, machinery has been lifting the once carefully-tended turf, scooping it up. Turf and earth piled on what used to be the pitch. Green grass and yellow dandelions now in mounds of brown.

Outside, some distance above the ground, on the grey-brown wall of the Grosvenor Road end, a plant, a corydalis, green leaves and yellow flowers. Still surviving up there since arriving as a wind-blown seed some years ago. Below it, several clumps of its offspring.

For now, while the heavy plant machinery does its work inside, the little plant outside blooms on.

It may have time to set seed again before this wall comes down. So maybe some day, when this wall is gone, a crack in a pavement or a townhouse forecourt might give a new home to its cheery yellow and green.

But for now, by York City’s old home, I’m remembering the red and blue.

Goodbye Bootham Crescent, dear old neighbour.

The post Goodbye Bootham Crescent appeared first on York Stories.

Some months on from my earlier visit, I noticed in passing recently that there have been some visible changes to the former Rowntree factory building — aka the Cocoa Works development. I know many readers have fond memories of this place, and that many are interested in its redevelopment. I went up that way on Sunday to take some photos.

Cocoa Works from Haxby Road, 12 Dec 2021

As always, its brickwork catches the late afternoon light rather handsomely from this side, above the shade in the winter streets below.

Back in autumn 2004, on one of my York Walks, (heading for the old Fever Hospital, though a page about it didn’t appear until much later), I passed that corner and took a photo of the factory glowing in the sunlight of that year.

Corner of the factory building, from Haxby Rd bridge, 4 Nov 2004

Clearly, judging by the steam coming from it, the building was still in use at that point, but I’m not sure what this part of it was used for. (If you do, please add a comment below.)

That’s many years back. This old factory has been empty for years, awaiting redevelopment. When I wrote about it earlier this year, though there was a new section of road alongside it, there wasn’t much to see in terms of work on the building itself, but now there is.

Cocoa Works, 12 Dec 2021

A major recent change visible from the street is the work to remove the factory windows. And so many windows there are …

Window removal underway, 12 Dec 2021

Further along the long frontage I stopped to take a photo from a familiar reference point I’ve used before to record the changes here (mainly nature taking over, and also razor wire at one point).

Main entrance, 12 Dec 2021

Another photo taken all those years back, 2004, to compare with the above:

Entrance to the factory, 4 Nov 2004

But back into the present, as our walk along the long factory frontage takes us to the end of this massive building.

End of the old place …

The winter sun shines through it, while the adverts on the hoardings below show how it will look in the future.

I then headed round to the side the sun was on, Cocoa West, via the cycle track (former railway line), with the factory brickwork still sunlit above. More on Cocoa West soon.

. . . . .

Thanks to everyone who continues to support these pages with virtual coffees via ko-fi.

The post Cocoa Works progress appeared first on York Stories.

Plans for Bootham Park: new buildings in the area around the chapel, from ERL planning application

Hard to believe that in a few days it will be exactly six years since Bootham Park Hospital closed. This month, after years of concerns about its future, and with various visions for it publicised, there’s an actual planning application available to view on the council’s planning portal:

21/02108/FULM

(if that direct link doesn’t work, go to planningaccess.york.gov.uk/online-applications/ and enter the reference number 21/02108/FULM in the search box)

Local media reports in recent months covered the sale of Bootham Park to ERL, and the ‘visions’ for how it might look. These included a rather idyllic looking representation of all kinds of lovely things going on in the green space in front of it.

How Bootham Park might look … (Image: ERL)

There would be a walkway around it, a picnic area, an edible garden, a sensory garden, sports pitches, and perhaps a pop-up outdoor cinema occasionally, and a temporary market.

I wondered how all that was going to fit in, and work together. Boring of me, perhaps, but I wondered about those messy but important details like dog poo on sports pitches.

Anyway, we now have the actual planning application, not just nice representations.

Inevitably, it’s an application with a huge number of documents and a huge amount of detail. It’s such a historic and complex site, containing many buildings from different periods, and a large area of parkland around them. Here’s an aerial view, from ERL’s website boothampark.co.uk:

Bootham Park site, aerial view, from boothampark.co.uk

Note that the application site is marked with the red line boundary. The plans aren’t for the whole of the site we think of as Bootham Park, as the NHS has retained in its ownership an area of land in the north-eastern corner.

I’ve written about this place many times before, being one of those locals who has a certain sense of connection to it, having lived in the area close to it for some time — 30 years. I probably took it for granted for most of that time, but certainly haven’t in the six years since the hospital closed, as it was clear that it might end up a gated, privatised place. For a while, after the hospital closure, it felt like it already was that, with a security guard on patrol to keep us off the field.

As I’ve said before, it seems to me that the most important aspect of any development is that the current access through the grounds, from Bridge Lane and Clarence Street to Bootham, is preserved, and protected, for pedestrians and cyclists. If not, then we would lose something many of us have valued for many years.

In the available planning application documents I looked for information on the right of way, specifically.

Apparently it isn’t, technically, a right of way at present, but under these plans would become one:

Pedestrians and cyclists can also access the site from the north and south running from Bootham/A19 to the south and to the north to the pedestrian pathway there, linking Grosvenor Road with Bridge Lane, that divides this application site from the
York Hospital site. The pedestrian/cycling route is called ‘The Avenue’; while the public make use of this it is not a Public Right of Way and remains in private ownership.
Should planning permission be granted then a formal right of way or similar dedicated right will be granted in perpetuity.

– Planning statement (PDF)

Sounds great, good news. But I also know that elements of planning applications get changed later, after public attention has moved on to other things, so I hope that this aspect is focused on and legally protected, and that the route through doesn’t end up as a ‘permissive path’, but a properly protected right of way.

The planning statement also emphasises that the developers are committed to preserving the wider public access to the grounds:

Enabling and securing (in perpetuity) public access, including sports pitches use by the adjoining school and other schools during term time. In addition, public access will be secured of the large open area in front of the main listed building.
This will include a 680-metre exercise route around the perimeter of the open space which will be accessible at all times. The open space area will include sensory planting/edible gardens, flexible break out spaces, seating, and spaces for
contemplation alongside natural play equipment as well as biodiversity enhancement. All, of course subject to the Council’s approval.

It looks convincing, and like it’s meant, and I’d like to believe it is. But there’s clearly going to be a huge investment in the site, and it’s clearly intended as a ‘luxury’ kind of place for its residents, so I can’t see how the kind of public access suggested is going to work, without more fencing off/gating of various parts, particularly at night.

Presumably there’s more detail on these aspects in the other documents submitted with the planning application.

A massive investment will of course be needed for all this. The mere cost of the work needed on repairing and repainting the rusting dilapidated railings around the site – a kilometre in length, apparently – will be huge. Which is why it seemed a bit ludicrous that at one time there were vociferous calls for the whole place to be kept ‘for the people of York’. How on earth would we pay for it, and its upkeep?

So into its new life it goes — eventually, when yet another massively complex application for yet another historically important site eventually works its way through the system. I really hope there are enough staff in the planning department to cope with all of this. So much interest in this blossoming/gentrified city, so much money coming in, so much of the old place becoming the new place.

There are other aspects of this planning application I’d like to cover, when I’ve looked at more of the planning application documents. Intending to return to it in stages, coming in from the edges. Near the edges of the site are many trees, and various interesting smaller buildings.

. . . . .

This website is supported by your ko-fi contributions. Thank you.

The post Bootham Park: planning application, and public access appeared first on York Stories.

Opening in 1971 – the Post House hotel

It took a while to get back to 1971 … (apologies for the long gap in communication).

Previously, we were looking at a hotel that opened this year, 2021, in a building that was formerly an office block. Fifty years ago, back in September 1971, a new Post House hotel opened on Tadcaster Road.

A full-page advert in an early 1970s guide to York previously featured on these pages promotes its opening, with a rather attention-grabbing phrase: ‘Stop short of York’.

Ad for the new Post House hotel, opening in 1971

‘Stop short of’ — decide not to do something, although you almost do. But in this case, now it’s grabbed your attention, it explains that the hotel is some way outside the city centre, on ‘the main approach road from the A1 and the South’, presumably intending to make a virtue of its convenience for motorists coming from that direction, who won’t have to negotiate driving through the city centre to get to it.

I realised I couldn’t picture this place at all, and had no idea if it’s still there. I’m not up that end of town much, and no reason to be looking at hotels when I am up there. But yes, it is still there. Cherry Lane, off the main Tadcaster Road, runs alongside it, and Google Streetview shows how it looks now from Cherry Lane, from a similar angle to the illustration above. It’s now a Holiday Inn.

Holiday Inn (formerly Post House hotel), from Cherry Lane, Tadcaster Road. Image: Google Street View

When it opened, 50 years ago, it had 104 rooms, described in the advert. ‘All are centrally heated, with private bathroom, room tv, phone and radio, and facilities for making tea and coffee.’ This doesn’t seem like the height of luxury now, but presumably seemed so back then. Though it’s not clear to me how ‘posh’ this hotel was, at the time.

As a comparison, in the same publication there’s an ad for a country guest house in Acaster Malbis. It states, that ‘all bedrooms have hot and cold water, room-controlled central heating (all the year), electric razor points, bedside lights and electric blankets’.

We always went self-catering, and I was just a young child at this time. I’m struggling to get the context of the Post House hotel experience of the early 1970s, and the level of luxury offered.

The 1971 advert also makes a point of referring to the history of the site: ‘There used to be an old manor on the site; we’ve kept all we could of its gardens, including a magnificent Cedar of Lebanon.’ I’m not sure how common it was back then for mature trees to be kept when a site was cleared for redevelopment.

But what about ‘the old manor’, I wondered. Would we now completely demolish an old manor house to build a new hotel? What kind of state was it in? Perhaps in a ruinous condition and thought not worth saving?

I’ve not been able to find any images of the ‘old manor’, or much information about it in general, but it’s shown on old maps.

OS map, 1892, showing manor house and church, Dringhouses

I tend to forget that this area of Tadcaster Road is called Dringhouses. But the old maps remind us that Dringhouses was a coherent old place, with a church and a manor house next to one another, before the Post House hotel was built on the site of the manor. Here’s the satellite view from Google for comparison, with the church and the hotel next to it.

Aerial view of church and adjacent hotel, Dringhouses (Google)

Clearly there’s a lot of tree cover and space between the two, but it’s hard to imagine a development like this in other historic settlements outside the city walls, with a similarly large modern hotel built next to a church. I wonder if there were any objections to this development at the time.

Interesting to note that there’s a planning application for a nearby development going to the planning committee tomorrow (2 Sept) (ref 20/00507/FULM). The applicant wants to build a retirement complex, just across the other side of Cherry Lane from the hotel, on the site shown towards the bottom of the aerial image above (plan here, PDF). However the committee report recommends refusal, stating that the proposed development ‘would harm the visual amenity of the streetscene, the form and character of the adjoining section of Tadcaster Road and the setting of the Tadcaster Road Conservation Area.’

It’s difficult to ignore the fact that the large 1970s hotel is also rather obvious in the streetscene. As a comment in response to an article in the Press puts it: ‘This would really spoil the view from the beautiful and historic Holiday Inn.’

The recommendation for refusal of the proposed development perhaps illustrates the difference in our approaches to planning and conservation matters, compared to 50 years ago.

Anyway, time to head back into the present, heading into town, along that historic route in from the south. From the corner of Cherry Lane, past the hotel, and the church. Glancing up, as we do, at its spire. This is apparently made of fibreglass, which surprised me.

I wondered if I have a photo of it … just this slightly blurred one, through trees.

Spire of St Edward the Confessor, Dringhouses, from the Knavesmire, Aug 2018

I wondered if it was common to replace church spires with fibreglass replicas. I found a couple of other examples, including this one.

The church, St Edward the Confessor, is a Victorian era rebuilding of an earlier church on the site. By the second half of the 20th century the church appears to have been rather dilapidated and in need of repair, and the fibreglass replacement spire was part of that, erected in 1970. As construction of the hotel would have been taking place alongside it at around the same time, there’s perhaps a connection there. Perhaps anyone who knows more will add information in the comments below.

Likewise, if you remember the Post House in its early days, or the old Manor House before it, your local insights and knowledge are welcome, as always.

Update: Dringhouses Manor

Many thanks to Edward Waterson, who after reading the above sent me photos and information on Dringhouses Manor, demolished to make way for the hotel.

Dringhouses Manor

The cedar tree, mentioned in the advert above, and apparently still on the hotel site, is on the right in the photos above.

The manor house doesn’t look like an ancient dilapidated dwelling, which is how I’d imagined it must be. Indeed it looks smart and well-maintained, and not particularly ancient. This is explained in the information Edward sent to accompany the photos.

When the owner of the Dringhouses estate, Col. Eason Wilkinson, died in 1941 the manor house was bought by F W Shepherd, who reclad it. A much older house (?17th century?) was encased in modern brick.

He added: ‘The family formed St Edwards Close to the rear of the hotel and kept some cracking good plots for them to build new houses on, referred to locally as Shepherds Bush.’

Thanks too to Andy Walker, who has sent me another photo of Dringhouses Manor, this time taken from the front.

Dringhouses Manor

The post New hotel … Post House, 1971 appeared first on York Stories.

2 Rougier Street, from just outside the city walls, 7 May 2021

Previously we were peering into a pond just outside the city walls. Now it’s time to look upwards, to a clock, and the building it’s on, just inside the city walls. Yes, it’s time to admire the majestic skyline of Rougier Street …

This ‘landmark’ building, 2 Rougier Street, was previously insurance company offices. It has been included on these pages before. Adverts in decades past featured rather stylish hand-drawn illustrations of the building.

2 Rougier Street, 1970s advert

I’ve also previously mentioned its clock, when compiling pages about the various clocks to be seen on the city streets. The one on this building was for a while one of the city’s many stopped clocks, but is now showing the right time. I guess it would have to, or would have to be removed, as an old stopped clock doesn’t give the right impression on a new hotel. Which is what this building is now.

Malmaison hotel, 2 Rougier Street, 7 May 2021

In recent years there was a planning application to convert the office block to residential accommodation, but that didn’t happen. It’s now a hotel under the ‘Malmaison’ brand. It was due to open this month, but apparently its opening has been delayed.

This previously very tall building is now a bit taller, with one of those weird additions that seem to be the thing in recent years, of adding height to a building but setting the extra storey back a bit, presumably to make it less visible/intrusive. But part of it is visible from the city walls, and it’s very visible from the Leeman Road area near the railway museum, as pictured on an earlier page.

It’s also quite visible if you’re down the other end of Rougier Street looking back up at it.

Let’s go through the archway and enter the gloomy canyon …

Rougier Street view, 10 May 2021

In the distance there, the archway we’ve just come through, and the Memorial Gardens and triangular park beyond it. They’re all bathed in evening sunlight, but none of it reaches down here, because of the height of the light-blocking buildings, 2 Rougier Street and its more recent neighbour.

I really don’t like the look of the extra storey, but get the impression that many people are looking forward to visiting the ‘sky bar’ up there, when it opens.

Back down at street level, I recently I found an interesting image in an article in the Press, showing a view of Rougier Street from a similar place to the one above, but before the office block in the foreground was built.

Rougier Street, 1982 (from York Press)

I’m used to the way Rougier Street looks, and the scale of that office building, but looking at it afresh, in this photo, I wonder how a building of that scale was permitted in such a sensitive location. It just looks wrong, plonked there, out of keeping with everything around it.

Perhaps it was thought that the railway offices to the left of it had set a precedent for tall buildings in this part of the city. But the contrast between the two and the impact of the large office block is clear.

Since then of course the foreground area, where the low building was, has been filled with another large building, as pictured above.

On the subject of tall buildings, and as we are on Rougier Street, looking at one side of it, maybe it’s time to turn to the other side of it to confront ‘the most shameful and absurd decision any committee has ever made‘ … ?

… or maybe it needs some more thought.

Let’s briefly escape 2021 and run off into 1971. More on that story later.

The post 2 Rougier Street: from office block to hotel appeared first on York Stories.

Hudson House from city walls, April 2016

Regular readers of these pages may be thinking ‘Why does she keep going on about Hudson Quarter?’ Maybe people are thinking that I’m one of those influencers and that my influence is so enormous that the developers have offered me a flat in the building in return for my recent coverage of their development.

I’ve just found it all very interesting, from various angles/points of view. From thinking more about Hudson House and large office blocks like it, to following the lengthy process of its demolition and thinking about the history of the site it was on, then looking at what has replaced it.

We are moving on to other things, but before we do, I just wanted to include a few ‘then and now’ comparisons, which I’ve been looking at while compiling the previous page. It’s easy to forget what used to occupy a piece of land, once its replacement is built.

So here’s a reminder of the old Hudson House, from the city walls, looking towards town, five years back.

Hudson House and West Offices, 24 April 2016

And here’s its replacement, from a similar perspective (not exactly the same place, a little further along the city walls).

Hudson Quarter and West Offices, May 2021

From a bit further back, before this point, it appears that more of West Offices is blocked from view than was the case previously, as the Hudson Quarter buildings seem a bit closer to the edge of the access road than Hudson House was. (See the sixth photo on the earlier page.)

As I mentioned on the previous page, there has been some work on the repaving of the access road. The photos from some years back, looking down on it from the walls, have reminded me how it looked before.

Hudson House access road, April 2016

It had a pointless pavement punctuated by planters. By 2016 they appear to have contained no plants, but for some reason sat there. Many of them those concretey-looking ones, as if there wasn’t enough concrete already in the shape of the office block itself. Opposite the planters was a strange little area of grass, with more concrete bits punctuating it, and a wiggly path alongside.

The replacement paving (see previous page) seems like a definite improvement. Sad to see though that the Hudson House quarter appears to have removed a few trees. I hadn’t noticed that before.

Time to move on along the city walls walk, towards town, and other things. But as we leave this area, a glance back at the buildings old and new.

The old:

Hudson House, from the walls, April 2016

The new:

Hudson Quarter, from the walls, May 2021

The post Then and now: Hudson House to Hudson Quarter appeared first on York Stories.