Known tunnel 1: sorting office

This is the fairly new cycle/pedestrian entrance to the railway station, looking away from the station. Scarborough Bridge is behind the trees, the station platforms are to the left and Leeman Road sorting office is that pale building to the right.

Somewhere under here there was, and perhaps still is, a tunnel connecting the sorting office with the railway station platforms. You used to be able to see the entrance to it beneath one of the platforms, apparently, though I don’t know if it’s still visible, or indeed still in use. My dad remembers it, so does a friend.

Known tunnel 2: Rowntree’s

Not much mystery there then. I thought I had an alluring mystery tunnel to tell you about when I read a document on the proposed (now implemented) Conservation Area on Haxby Road, around the Rowntree’s buildings. It said that the dining block was ‘possibly connected by subways under the highway’. The ‘possibly’ made it sound intriguing.

… No mystery here actually. There was definitely a tunnel, between the main factory building and the dining block. Stephen remembers it, and a later planning document refers to it. I expect it’s been sealed long ago, particularly as the other end is now a Nuffield Hospital, and they won’t want urban explorers popping up in their basement.

Mystery 1: a tunnel under Blossom Street?

Audrey lived on Blossom St in the 1930s, and remembers the Forsselius garage (now a Premier Inn) being built (it opened in 1938). Audrey mentioned a rather more mysterious rumoured underground passageway:

It would be nice to know if anyone else has heard the same story, or has any further information.

Mystery tunnel/tube 2: station to former railway offices

Over Christmas I was discussing with my dad the development of West Offices, where he used to work, and the former railway headquarters building opposite, now the Cedar Court Grand. He recalled that there was some kind of underground communication between the railway headquarters and York station. Not a person-sized passage, more of a pneumatic tube type affair, as some old department stores had, delivering cash or documents.

Again, if anyone else has heard this, or knows more, please share.

And others …

There are of course many other rumoured underground tunnels and secret passageways. I’ve just asked my partner if he knows of any. Yes, from 56 Stonegate, where he worked years ago. Its cellars had a bricked-up part which, rumour had it, covered the entrance to a tunnel leading to the Minster …

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A year ago, when having a quick look at the since-demolished hutments behind the art gallery, I noticed this stone among the mucky shrubbery and litter.

Proper history, stumbled upon. Not packaged up and neatened, nicely presented, but found lying on the ground, randomly.

This stone says –

This Wall was Repaird
by Montagu Brooke
Esqr and is the
Property of the
Brookes. Anno 1760

It was clearly no longer attached to a wall, and displaced from elsewhere.

Further investigation revealed that the Brooke family lived on Coney Street. Robert Davies’s book of antiquarian walks around York, published in the late 19th century, says that Montague Brooke was the last of the family to live in the Coney Street house – which was apparently a few doors down from the Mansion House. Mr Davies said that ’some of the leaden spouts at the back of the house still exhibit the punning crest of the Brookes, a brock or badger, with the date 1758, perhaps the only memorial of the family now existing’.

I had a look, via the back alleys near City Screen. As expected, there’s nothing now that exhibits the ‘punning crest’. The buildings are all shops, and the downpipes and guttering are plastic.

So perhaps this ‘Brooke family stone’ in a forgotten corner of York is the only memorial of the family now existing.

Or, it was, a year ago. It may have been displaced again during the recent site clearance. I hope it wasn’t thrown in a skip.

Some further information came to light. Montagu’s brother was Sir Job Brooke, who had mental health problems, or, as they said in those days, was a ‘lunatick’.

A petition was presented to Parliament by Montagu and his mother Bridget to stop Job from marrying ‘during his lunacy’. He didn’t marry, and the family title is listed among the ‘extinct baronetcies’.

So, what about this wall, proudly repaired by Montagu Brooke?

There’s a document at the Borthwick Institute – and another copy on the desk in front of me – detailing the case of a dispute over a boundary wall somewhere in the parish of St Michael, Spurriergate, which divided coal yards owned by Montagu Brooke and John Pennock. Perhaps the very wall this stone came from. Seems likely. How it got from Spurriergate to the land at the back of the art gallery is a mystery.

I enquired at the time, of those who might know, but had no reply. (No doubt appearing a bit weird for caring. Not for the first time, I’m sure.)

The National Archives have the will of Montague Brooke of York, who I assume is the same gentleman, dated 2nd June, 1761.

“My body I desire may be interred with decency, but not with state, in the church-
yard of that parish wherever I may happen to dye; but if I should happen
to dye in the parish of Saint Martin in Coney Street, York, that then I may
not only be buryed in the churchyard belonging to the same, but also that
the Rev. Mr. Joseph Bridges, if he survives me, may perform the last office.”

Montagu Brooke died in York, but I’m not sure where he’s buried. Perhaps in the churchyard of St Martin’s, which now seems to have disappeared under the paved approach to the City Screen development.

His book collection – “a curious and valuable collection of books : Consisting of several Libraries, and particularly that of Montagu Brooke, of York, Esq ; Lately deceased” – was advertised for sale by J Todd and H Sotheran, booksellers in York, in 1767.

A forgotten fragment of stone with an inscription carved in the 18th century.

A digital photo and some internet-based research in the 21st century.

A website page remembering Montagu Brooke, one-time citizen, with his boundary dispute and his ‘lunatick’ brother and his family’s forgotten title. One of many ‘York Stories’ from centuries past.

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2009

I do like a Sunday wander in some green and pleasant part of Yorkshire, particularly if the map suggests it has many woods and streams. But a walk is all the more alluring if among all the greenery there’s some interesting architectural feature. Near Byland Abbey, in Yorkshire, is an intriguing tower on a hill in the woods.

Mount Snever Observatory, Oldstead, was built for John Wormald by J Dodds, in 1837/8, to celebrate the accession of Queen Victoria.

The available sources all refer to it as disused, and one photo I found suggested it might have crumbled rather at one stage. If so, it has been rebuilt, this large tower, at the top of a hill, in the middle of a wood. It was a fairly arduous climb to get there.

Apparently this tower housed a telescope. Presumably John Wormald climbed up the hill of an evening and went up his tower to do a bit of stargazing. We have a slightly more accessible observatory in York, of course, in the Museum Gardens, dating from a little earlier (1832-3).

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect is this verse on the side of the tower, carved into a stone block in the brick-built walls. It’s difficult to read now, but the English Heritage records have a transcription of it – see below. I thought it might be a verse penned by John Wormald himself, to put onto his celebratory observatory tower. The capitalised words are striking.

In fact, it’s apparently his own adaptation of parts of a poem by Alexander Pope – Windsor Forest. With a couple of words slightly ‘mis-remembered’ perhaps, and what are clearly deliberate changes.

‘Here hills and waving groves a scene display

And part admit and part exclude the day

See rich industry smiling on the plains
And peace and plenty tell VICTORIA reigns!
Happy the MAN who to these shades retires
Whom NATURE charms and whom the muse inspires
Who wandering thoughtful in this silent wood
Attends the duties of the wise and good

To observe a mean, be to himself a friend
To follow NATURE and regard his end.’

These are the original lines from the (very long) poem by Pope:

Here waving groves a checquer’d scene display,
And part admit, and part exclude the day; [lines 17-18]

Rich Industry sits smiling on the plains,
And peace and plenty tell, a Stuart reigns. [lines 41-42]

Happy next him, who to these shades retires,
Whom Nature charms, and whom the Muse inspires; [lines 235-236]

Or wand’ring thoughtful in the silent wood,
Attends the duties of the wise and good,
T’observe a mean, be to himself a friend,
To follow nature, and regard his end; [lines 247-250]

The tower is mentioned in various walks in the vicinity, but no one seems to know much about John Wormald, or his observatory up on the hill amongst the ‘waving groves’ of North Yorkshire.

Location

The old observatory tower is in North Yorkshire, not far from Byland Abbey. A walking route (5 miles) is available on the AA website: Monks and an Astronomer at Byland Abbey

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