Front cover of the official guide: City and County of the City of York (1961). Illustration by Kenneth Steel.

I’ve recently been perusing an interesting guide to York, bought as part of a small pile of publications from the Barbican Bookshop, in its closing down sale, some years back. As previously mentioned, I found the ‘local interest’ shelves pretty much cleared, but a few little treasures were found. (See ‘related posts’, below, for several of them.)

I’ve wanted to mention this particular guidebook, and feature a few scans of its pages, for some time.

Much of it is the familiar tourist-focused information on the Minster and other famous buildings. But alongside that are many pages illustrating York as it was for people living in the city, the places where residents worked and shopped.

My particular copy was once the property of Moorlands Hotel in Whitby, the stamp in the front suggests. I wonder how and when it ended up tucked away in a corner of a secondhand bookshop in York.

The booklet was published ‘by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of the City of York’.

Title page of the 1961 York guide

For me, looking at this title page of the booklet, the inclusion of the ‘Citizens’ — and the fact that the word is capitalised — really stands out. Do we use the word ‘citizens’ as often now? Probably not, and perhaps not with this amount of civic pride.

The guide, in its introductory ‘Welcome to York’ page, ends with:

‘This book is not intended for the delectation of visitors only, but also for the men, women and children who dwell within the boundaries of our City.  The citizens of York are proud of their City, and York is proud of its citizens.  No matter where they may roam, those who have lived within the sound of the Minster bells, and have trodden its old streets, never forget the City of their birth or adoption, and for them this book may perhaps bring back happy memories.’

It’s perhaps even more likely to provoke memories now it’s 57 years old, and it certainly gives an insight into the city as it was at the start of the 1960s.

After many pages of the kind of information you’d expect to find in a guide for visitors — the history of the city, and its well-known historic buildings — the subject of page 69 is the University of York, not built at that point, but clearly seen as an exciting and important thing for the city, after government approval in 1960.

‘The university will be built at Heslington, less than a mile from the city walls, on a site of nearly 200 acres which includes Heslington Hall and its grounds.’

This is followed by a page on the city’s library and information service, and several pages on the history and uses of the Ouse, then brief information on the strays (mainly the Knavesmire), and the city’s parks and open spaces. There’s then, rather surprisingly, a ‘French Section’, which is actually just the one page. My French is quite poor but this part stood out:

From the French section of the 1961 guide to York

Ah yes, the wagons de chemin de fer, the chocolat and the instruments optiques. It sounds even more impressive in French.

The reason this is in the French summary section is because this official guide, in 1961, devoted a whole four pages to ‘Commerce and Industry’ (pages 88-91). Featuring, as you might expect, Rowntree and Co Ltd, followed by Joseph Terry and Sons Ltd. But then a reminder that the city’s workforce in the factories didn’t just make chocolate, with a page on the York Carriage and Wagon Works (aka the carriageworks), followed by a page on Cooke, Troughton and Simms Ltd. (Cooke’s factory was at the Haxby Road site where the new mental health facility is to be built.)

The advertisements towards the back of the guide remind us too of other places where many York citizens worked, back then.

Examples of Adams Hydraulics ironwork can of course be seen all over York, if you’re paying attention to ground level ironwork (and perhaps in particular, as a 21st century citizen, if you’ve had concerns about silted-up street drains).

Adams Hydraulics, advert from the 1961 guide

Big buildings advertised by Shepherd’s, including one for the University of Leeds which seems to be still in use (see Google Street View), though it seems less likely that the ‘Boiler House for 52 acre factory’ will have survived. (A quick Google suggests that the building was apparently still standing in 2010.)

Shepherd, advert from the 1961 guide

And then Shepherd Homes, building family housing out in the expanding suburbs:

Shepherd Homes, advert from the 1961 guide

From where the citizens of York might have worked and lived, to where they shopped:

Hunter and Smallpage, Goodramgate, advert from the 1961 guide

Hunter and Smallpage’s advert inside the back cover of the guidebook highlights that the shop had ‘6 floor showrooms’ and its own private car park, which must have been where Café Luca is now.

I remember the name Hunter and Smallpage, but don’t remember a store called Harts. But Harts also advertised in the 1961 guide, with a map showing the locations of various landmarks, including their shop:

1961 York guide: advert for Harts store

Interesting that the map includes mention of the telephone exchange, which of course at that time would have been a fairly new building, and was clearly seen as a landmark worthy of mention. And in the bottom corner of this page, the last page of the guide, mention of the printer of this official guide to York, in 1961. Printed locally, of course, at Ben Johnson’s, as so many things were, back then.

When I first thought about including this 1961 guide I thought it would be a case of just scanning some of the pages and adding them without too much comment, perhaps no comment at all. But it always ends up being more complicated than that, and several hours on from when I started this ‘quick page’ I find I’ve still not finished, as looking carefully always prompts more questions, and usually more Googling. So I just have to mention the cover illustrations of this lovely guidebook, and the fact that when scanning it I paid more attention to the signature, Kenneth Steel, apparently. The back cover illustration is particularly pleasing.

1961 York guide, back cover. Illustration by Kenneth Steel.

Footnote

… Gentle nostalgia, sometimes … getting to grips with important current things sometimes … hundreds of pages of all kinds of things here on this citizen’s record of York and its changes. And all without annoying adverts or pop-ups nagging you to join my mailing list (though you can do that on this link if you’d like to), and all proper ‘authentic’, independent, and apparently unique. Looking after this online resource I’ve built up over the years also involves paying website hosting fees every month. If you’d like to say thanks for this online resource, virtual coffees are always appreciated. I continue to add to these pages what I can, when I can. Thanks for your interest and support,
Lisa

The post York in 1961 appeared first on York Stories.

Carriageworks canteen, Holgate Rd, 27 July 2014

The consultation on the York Central site has been difficult to address on these pages, but I felt some kind of responsibility to try to do that. I’ve found it exhausting and disheartening, in general, but have kept going out of some kind of weird sense of civic duty. With mixed feelings. On the one hand it seems really important, on the other hand I sense that there’s not a lot of public interest and realise that most of this has been decided already.

And then there’s the rather startling difference in views in our ways of seeing the site to begin with. A recent piece in the Press included this comment:

Cllr Sonja Crisp, Lord Mayor of York and Holgate councillor said: “We have a clean slate here, so if you have any ideas as to what to do with the place, say them. Once it is done, it is done.”

(York Press article)

The last sentence is correct: once it’s done, it’s done.

The first part of the statement is nonsense.

Nowhere in built-up York is a ‘clean slate’, and the York Central site most definitely isn’t.

A different way of seeing it, my way of seeing it, is reflected in comments by the Conservation Area Advisory Panel in a document from 2011:

‘The surviving fabric on the York Central site represents a significant proportion of all York’s industrial heritage’

And we’ve demolished more of that fabric since then.

Carriageworks canteen, December 2011

But over on Holgate Road are the much-reduced remains of what was the carriageworks site. And one of the reasons I’ve found the York Central consultation documents so difficult and challenging to engage with is that their representation of the ‘heritage’ makes those buildings essentially invisible. (Or perhaps they’ve been demolished already and no one noticed.)

Everything else has a number and note in the key. The carriageworks, and the canteen building that once formed part of its entrance, they’re not highlighted at all. Why is that?

I’ve realised for a long while that the powers that be have been plotting how to get access to the site, to ‘unlock’ the development, and bringing in some kind of bridge straight through the middle of the old carriageworks canteen is the way they’ve already decided to do it. I don’t know why they couldn’t bring the road in over the grassed area to the west of the carriageworks buildings, but this consultation doesn’t offer that option.

I’ll be honest, when I looked at these plans at the end of last year and when I’ve looked at them every time since, I’ve felt like this is another example of how alienating and unpleasant 21st century York can feel at times. Deciding to demolish heritage assets of community value and significance without asking the community if they mind is one thing, but trying to gloss that over by not bothering to acknowledge that the buildings even exist is … well, appalling and depressing.

It’s like the King’s Square consultation, which if I recall took a similar approach to the mulberry tree on the raised area. Already doomed, so they didn’t bother to ask, they’d already decided.

I/we saved that tree, but I doubt I/we can save the carriageworks canteen, even though it’s a more attractive building than anything they’ll build now, and with more cultural and historical significance than any road that will replace it.

I’ve got no good feelings about the York Central proposals as they stand. I also doubt that anything I say will have much impact, and perhaps that applies to most of us. But this ‘heart of York’ deserves attention, so I’ve done my best, in a heavy-hearted kind of way. I suspect that the site will a) have much of its heritage and meaning destroyed and b) will be filled with office blocks they’ll find it hard to fill and … well, if you’re still reading and are still interested, I’m intending to email a condensed version of all this as a comment, tomorrow, and will share it on this site so anyone can cut and paste bits of it they agree with, if they’d like to.

Further information

Comments can be made via email to: yorkcentral@york.gov.uk and more information can be found at www.york.gov.uk/yorkcentral. If you’d prefer to give your views via the online questionnaire it’s on this link. Deadline for comment is midnight on 18 February.

On the council’s website, in the list of ‘character statements’ for the suburban areas of York, read this, number 31 on this list, on the significance of the buildings in the area. From that:

The canteen buildings (1888) at these works have been nominated for inclusion on the Local List of Heritage Assets as the last remaining social building in the carriage works complex.

… Social value relating to the railway area as a whole cannot be over emphasised as thousands of employees past and present will have a connection to the buildings

and see the ‘Related posts’, below, leading to other pages on this site.

Though it appears to be a waste of time, this page, as so few people care and those voices that do don’t reach and break through the dominant narrative, York as it is now.

But there will be more interest no doubt when numerous individual lives are inconvenienced by the horrendous congestion on Holgate Road as a result of this new road and the construction-related traffic. Which will be much worse, far more polluting, than all those men on bikes leaving the carriageworks, which some of us remember.

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Carriageworks canteen, December 2011

Back in June I asked for memories, thoughts provoked by this building. It is, as many of you knew, the old carriageworks canteen. It was part of a group of buildings at the entrance.

These responses were brilliant, thank you.

Thoughts follow underneath your words.

I asked: ‘If you recognise this building, I’m interested in what it means to you. If it has any meaning, if it reminds you of anything, if it stands for anything, symbolises anything to you.’

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Here’s the building recently, as it looks this summer —

Carriageworks canteen, Holgate Rd, 27 July 2014

The place might look forgotten, but the comments above show that it isn’t, and that it has other meanings too, even to people who perhaps don’t remember it as I do, and as many of you do, in the 70s, 80s, earlier, when it was part of the entrance to a thriving and busy place.

It isn’t just about our memories. I thought that perhaps everyone who answered would be like me, remembering. There are other messages in the above, more general thoughts about York’s industrial heritage and our attitudes to it, and I hope that the comments above are read by those who get to decide on what gets demolished in this city and what’s considered to have value, to be worth retaining.

This building, these comments suggest, is recognised as the aesthetically pleasing building it is (‘I love the brickwork’), and as having a bigger significance, as symbolising something we’re losing.

I was also struck by, and cheered up by, the comment which mentions a memory of place being passed on: ‘My parents told me about the area and hundreds of men sat on the wall by the Fox Inn, all from the carriage works’.

I happen to know some of those men from the carriage works. And I remember the carriageworks, and that entrance, that canteen, from when I passed it, thousands of times, over the years, on my way to school. I remember it closing, I remember visiting it in the mid 1990s before it closed. I have photos, press cuttings, and audio recordings from May 1995, and will be putting some of those things on these pages. Because it’s important, and it’s not being recorded enough, and leaving it in our memories or just chatting about it isn’t enough.

Thank you to everyone who remembered, or was interested and cared even if you weren’t there to have known it personally as an important place. Thanks for recognising that it was.

This building has no protection at all, which seems odd for a place which clearly has local meaning and value on many levels. There should be full consultation on what happens to it.

. . . . . . . .

This is one of several pages planned under the carriageworks category. It was sponsored by a reader. Thank you.

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Carriageworks canteen, Holgate Rd, 27 July 2004

Back in June, in a short survey, I asked if readers recognised this building. It’s pictured here as it looked 10 years ago, July 2004.

It was really nice to see your answers coming in. It had looked as if the place had been forgotten. But you, dear readers, you haven’t forgotten it.

27 people answered the survey, and 17 of you knew what the building used to be. Thanks to everyone who answered, everyone who remembered.

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ABB entrance, 1995. Photo: Phil Singleton

Almost 20 years after it happened, a reminder of what the closure of York’s carriageworks meant. Below is a selection of snippets, news reports, reaction and background, recorded from the radio in May 1995 when the closure was announced. Many voices. Please do have a listen, particularly if you don’t know about this important aspect of York’s history. If you haven’t time to listen to them all (though all are quite short), maybe listen to the first and the last.

The carriageworks is what most of us called it, but by the time of its closure it was known as ABB. And by the time of its closure it was a modern and efficient factory. Or as the first clip states:

‘ABB’s Holgate Road factory is the biggest train builder in Britain and one of the most modern in the world’.

The post Carriageworks (ABB) closure: 1995 audio appeared first on York Stories.

For now, here’s a photo of a building I was going to write about, and perhaps revisit (if it’s still there and hasn’t already been cleared out of the way). I’ve been meaning to write about it for months. But it would be far more interesting and useful if I could gather other people’s views before I do so.

I’ve been thinking a lot about heritage, and meanings, and what particular buildings and places mean, and why. This probably arose mainly from the debate over King’s Square, and James Alexander’s comments about ‘York’s true heritage’, then more recently after meeting with Helen Graham to discuss the Living with History project, the associated plaques day, and in response to the ‘Your Place’ project.

So I would appreciate your thoughts, dear readers, via this survey below, or on this link if it’s not displaying in a user friendly way on here. Please answer at least the first question. Thank you.

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