Sheds for Christmas market, Parliament St, 16 Nov

York’s Christmas market is back again this year. It’s apparently judged to be ‘the third best in the UK’.

I’m rather baffled by this. I don’t mean the ‘third best’ thing, who cares, I mean the fact that once again there are a lot of sheds crammed into Parliament Street and St Sampson’s Square.

Back in 2019 the Christmas market here was so popular that it ended up being a bit of a nightmare. The Press reported the ‘festive queuing and shuffling’.

I wrote about it, and the dangers of ‘overtourism’, back then. It feels like four years ago, but I’ve realised that my perception of time has been quite distorted by the recent stresses, so that two years feels like four. Not alone in that, I think?

Strangely, in 2021, we’re once again encouraging a lot of people to cram themselves into one part of the city centre, and because of this it’s apparently then necessary to surround it with a ‘ring of steel’ – the return of the ‘hostile vehicle mitigation and pedestrian barriers‘ we saw back in 2019.

Barriers by All Saints church, 16 Nov 2021

They’re meant to protect the city centre against terrorist attacks, and to make us feel safe. They just make me feel despondent. So does the Christmas market. Am I just an old misery? Perhaps.

This old misery took herself into town a few days ago, to have a look at the festive sheds and the barriers, before the market opened.

Parliament Street, from Piccadilly end, 16 Nov 2021

Weren’t we supposed to be building back better, or at least differently? This looks just like 2019 to me. Same old thing.

But a bit more confused, as there’s so much mixed messaging, so many contradictions. And perhaps quite a bit to feel angry about, in terms of what this all costs, and who it benefits.

The Christmas lights switch-on event in the city centre was cancelled because of fears about Covid spread, as a lot of people would then be gathered together at one time.

A spokesperson for Make It York said: “After much consideration the decision has been taken in partnership with York BID not to hold a physical light switch on event this year.

The event is always hugely popular, drawing in large crowds over a short period of time – and to ensure the safety of all visitors and residents we will instead focus on showcasing our winter light scheme via our online channels.”

But clearly the Christmas market – also drawing in large crowds over a short period of time – is thought to be a good idea. Presumably because it makes a lot of money, for some people involved with it. Though Make it York, who organise it, keep asking for more.

The Christmas market is clearly popular with visitors, but is seen by many York residents as something tedious and problematical imposed on us, rather than being something to get excited about. Many residents just quietly avoid it, and go elsewhere.

All things considered, I’m really surprised to see the Christmas market resurfacing this year. ‘Roll up, roll up, come and queue and shuffle round our festive sheds, at the third best Christmas market!’

‘My City Centre’

Its arrival seems to go against a developing trend of trying to encourage more residents back into the city centre. The city council recently asked for our views, in ‘My City Centre York’. It aims for ‘a new city centre vision':

A vibrant city centre, where a wide range of people want to spend time, live and work; a place where businesses thrive, sustainable communities grow, and a varied cultural and social life flourishes…

I didn’t respond to the ‘My City Centre York’ survey, but it looks like a lot of people did. On the council website there’s an interactive map, with comments added about particular streets and areas. I thought I’d have a quick look at Parliament Street, which has a lot of ‘thumbs down’ markers over it. The first one I selected reads:

This whole area is becoming a no-go area for residents and is now just a showground for MIY events that drive out residents and local traders

And another:

Always seems to be hired out to out of town travelling trades. Doesn’t support the local economy. Would be the best cafe / restaurant street.

And another:

St Nicholas Market disrupts city centre too much

I could find no comments saying that the Christmas market is a wonderful thing really valued by local residents.

So another contradiction – the council wants to encourage more residents back into the city centre, wants to make it more inviting, so it’s not ‘just for tourists’, then Make it York (agency owned by the council apparently dependent on council money/bailouts) plonks in the middle of it something that appears to be designed to attract more tourists. This then needs expensive barriers erecting around it, which make it harder not just for vehicles to access it, but funnels pedestrians and wheelchair users through narrow channels between big lumps of metal. How odd.

Shopping spree …

When not preoccupied with fears about Covid, and before the new festive anti-terror barriers arrived to remind us to also be fearful of terrorism, we may have found time to be fearful about climate change and the effects of our behaviour on the planet.

Many of us have recognised for some time that there are easy ways to lessen our impact, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to not buy loads of stuff we don’t need. Or to feel at certain times of year that we should buy stuff for other people that they don’t need or want. I got the impression that many more people were agreeing, between families and friends, to stop the Christmas gift-giving for us older people with enough stuff already. Particularly if you’re going to get in a car and drive miles to buy the stuff, rather than shopping locally, as I thought we were being encouraged to.

There are, of course, many shops in York, interesting independent ones, there all year round, where you could do your Christmas shopping, as you want to/have to.

But apparently there’s still enough demand for York to once again have its big Christmas market, and we should just ignore all of that. Maybe go back to hand-wringing and grand words and promises after the festive sheds are packed away.

How it could be …

We’ve had one year when we saw how it could be different. Last year, because of Covid, Parliament Street didn’t fill up with festive sheds and shuffling queues. It had the carousel, and some food stalls, and very nice it was too. When I walked through it one afternoon in December it had a very pleasant, gently festive atmosphere. I haven’t forgotten this. It was a glimpse of how York’s Parliament Street could be a gathering place for festivities that felt like they were part of York, naturally growing from it, rather than being plonked upon it.

Parliament St, 23 December 2020, with carousel

Even the problematic Parliament Street paving looked better, reflecting festive light, and giving us more room to move than is usually the case here at this time of the year.

Parliament St, 23 December 2020, without the festive sheds

Last year at this time things seemed quite quiet in town. This year, earlier this week, even before the market had opened, the city centre already seemed very busy. I was also in town briefly in half term, and the city centre was full of people of all ages out enjoying a mild autumn afternoon. I walked through King’s Square, where crowds were gathered to watch one of the street performers. Just like the old days, and good to see.

The city centre would presumably have continued to flourish without the tourist-pulling overcrowded Christmas market.

It’s possible to avoid the Christmas market, of course. But if you want to go into the city centre for some other reason, it’s quite difficult to ignore the barriers set up at many points around its periphery, and these are what prompted me to write this page. To me they’re depressing, essentially pointless, questionable at best. And they cost. And again, Make it York needs ‘support’ from the council to pay for them: “support with the cost of counter-terrorism measures during the Christmas market period, at a cost of £78,900.”

Hope all tax payers are happy with this.

– – – –

Apologies if I’m not able to post pages on here so often, and that when I do I sometimes seem to be repeating myself. Some problematical/questionable things need looking at and questioning more than once. I’ve lived in this city for a long time, and this resident’s record of York and its changes continues. Comments below and coffees via ko-fi are welcome, as always.

The post The festive sheds and barriers are back appeared first on York Stories.

George Hotel, Coney Street, circa 1850 (source)

As previously mentioned (and as shown on the late 20th century plan), the buildings of Coney Street are in many cases tall and narrow, on long narrow plots of land — though perhaps we tend not to notice that because of the modern shopfronts. After looking more closely at Coney Street, and photos I’ve taken of it, I’ve been thinking about two buildings with much wider frontages, on opposite sides of the street. Both built in the 20th century, on the sites of former coaching inns.

One of those coaching inns, the George, is pictured above, and shown on this 1852 plan.

Extract from the 1852 map of York

The George was at the heart of a busy and bustling Coney Street in the days of horse-powered transport. It occupied a large site between the river and Coney Street. The opening to its yard is still there, and one of its columns at the edge of that entrance. There’s a Civic Trust plaque on the building that now occupies the site. (There’s also some  in-depth and interesting information on coaching inns on the Civic Trust website.)

Leak and Thorp, a department store, opened in 1869 on the site after the George was demolished. The original store is pictured on an old postcard included on my previous page on Coney Street. That building was destroyed by fire in the 1930s.

A new store was built on the site, to replace it, and that building’s still there, with its distinctive Art Deco appearance. Here’s a 1970s illustration of it:

Ad for Leak and Thorp department store, York, 1973

(Originally included on this page from 2014, which also includes many more groovy ads from the early 1970s.)

Here’s Leak and Thorp’s store looking bright and inviting on a dark evening in the late 1960s, in what appears to be the run-up to Christmas.

Leak and Thorp, Coney St, 1967 (Photo: York Press)

The store was part of Coney Street for over a century, a highly-regarded part of York’s shopping scene, a place many residents will remember. Van Wilson’s book on Coney Street, York’s Golden Half Mile, includes many memories and recollections of Leak and Thorp’s, a place with many stories. (And apparently an extra storey added to its height at some point in the late 60s/very early 70s, comparing the images above. Perhaps that’s where the Norseman Restaurant, mentioned in the 1973 ad, was located?)

By the time I was shopping on Coney Street, in the 1980s, Leak and Thorp’s had closed. A photo from the York Press archives reminded me of this part of Coney Street as I remember it, with Chelsea Girl and Etam occupying what used to be the Leak and Thorp store.

Coney Street in 1983 (Photo: York Press)

The large impressive premises purpose-built for one local retailer had by then been divided up into smaller retail units.

In recent years the units have been occupied by Next, Monsoon, and River Island.

Next and Monsoon in former Leak and Thorp store, 25 Dec 2018

River Island’s Coney Street store closed last year, leaving another empty shop unit on Coney Street.

Across the road there was once another coaching inn. That’s a story for another day. For now, I just wanted to mention that this relatively modern building, while not officially Listed, is seen as a ‘building of merit’ in the Conservation Area Appraisal.

No. 19 Coney Street … an Art Deco department store with stone façade. It is considered a building of merit despite a poor additional upper storey which spoils the roofline. It is not as good an example of the style as No. 52 Coney Street which is listed Grade II.
— York Central Historic Core Conservation Area Appraisal (number 11: Central Shopping Area)

Number 52 is indeed a handsome building, but the next focus of attention is a different building on Coney Street.

. . .

This is December Daily number 11. Thanks for your virtual coffees in support of my wanderings and ponderings, around this ancient and modern, multi-layered place I call home.

The post Coney Street’s coaching inns, and what replaced them (part 1) appeared first on York Stories.

Coney Street, 25 Dec 2018

Before the brief detour down Bootham to look at a phone box, we were in the city centre, in the Coney Street area, looking at a plan of its shops some decades ago. I found the plan a while back, after taking some photos of Coney Street when it was quieter than usual, on Christmas day, and realising I really should get around to writing something about this interesting street. I realise that I’ve taken it for granted a bit, Coney Street, and perhaps I’m not alone in that.

It’s one of York’s ancient streets, a thoroughfare for many centuries, but perhaps we don’t think of it in that way. It has tended to be thought of as the city’s main shopping street, the home of many of the larger stores for the well-known brands, in the later 20th century and into the early 21st century.

Now, it has many gaps in its ‘retail offer’. Quite a few empty premises. Including the former BHS store, with a particularly wide frontage to Coney Street. Everyone recognises that Coney Street isn’t what it used to be, and that the changes here are mirrored in other shopping streets and other towns and cities across the country.

Here it is, busy and bustling, in the first half of the twentieth century.

Coney Street, 1930s (source: thecardindex.com)

At some point it seems to have lost its connection with its layers of history. Maybe around the time I was growing up here in York. I had a look at some old guidebooks I have from the late 1970s/early 80s, to see how it was described. The ‘York Official Guide’ sums up Coney Street rather briefly:

‘One of York’s main shopping streets, with few old buildings left.’

I guess it’s defining ‘old’ in the context of York’s wealth of historic buildings, but it’s a description that looks rather strange now. Thankfully our appreciation of ‘old’ buildings, of place, of heritage, seems to have deepened and widened in the decades since — and of course we can add another few decades to the age of Coney Street’s buildings since that description was written.

A quick look at the Historic England website confirms that Coney Street has many listed buildings, so clearly ‘old’ enough and interesting enough to have that kind of recognition and protection. Some are older in part than they look at the front, as they’ve been extended and raised and refronted as well as having those rather plasticky looking modern shop frontages put into them at ground level.

Coney Street, 25 Dec 2018

Look up, and the vertical emphasis is clear. Tall and in some cases very narrow buildings. At street level, more of a horizontal emphasis, for the chainstores and their wide window displays, because that’s what the old style high street expanded into, in streets in town centres like this.

It isn’t just about shops, and what it looks like now. Under our feet, under the setts of the late 20th century repaving and the tarmac patching, under the cardboard and sleeping bags in the doorways of the closed shops, there’s an ancient way, an ancient thoroughfare, and the homes and workplaces of centuries upon centuries of people, in the grand buildings fronting the street, the smaller buildings fronting the street, and the many plots behind, stretching back to the river or to backs of the plots of the neighbouring streets. Do we think much about that when we walk down Coney Street looking in the shop windows?

Coney Street, 25 Dec 2018

If you walk along Coney Street when it’s empty and quiet and look up, there are many stories in the various storeys above ground-floor level. Windows re-set, widened, facades added on, some rather bland frontages from postwar rebuilding after bomb damage in the area around St Martin’s church.

Merely being old doesn’t make something interesting though, does it. We have to feel connected to it. And in some way that’s deeper than just going in to a shop to buy a pair of trousers or a fruit bowl. Perhaps we haven’t felt like that on Coney Street. Maybe the meaningful memories and connections were to stores that aren’t there anymore, such as Woolworths, where many teenagers once congregated on Saturday afternoons.

We appear to be reaching the end of that period in our history where going into town to shop was a regular part of daily life, or a looked-forward-to weekend activity, and the empty shops on Coney Street reflect that.

What will happen in the longer term? Perhaps the larger retail units will be divided into smaller units, with shops shrinking back from the massive size some of them had in the later 20th century. This seems to have happened already with the old BHS store.

Shops perhaps reverting to residential? Many of those buildings would look rather grand and handsome if their 20th century shopfronts were replaced with a traditional front door and window. But then it is still a busy and noisy thoroughfare, and perhaps too rowdy for residential.

Though it was nice and quiet on Christmas Day when I took the photos used to illustrate this page. It appears to have taken me six months to write the page to go with them, and in that time the concerns over Coney Street continue, with the local Press reporting regularly on shops that may be closing, or have been saved from closure, and recently suggesting that the street is experiencing a ‘mini-revival’, as a phone shop has opened near Waterstones.

Coney Street, 25 Dec 2018

Perhaps more interesting than that, at least I thought so, was the ‘pop-up shop’ called Fabrication, which was temporarily based in one of the empty retail units, and I hope it’s still there.

Fabrication, Coney Street, 25 Dec 2018

It was selling many beautiful carefully-crafted things, and spending money here would mean money going to the makers of the beautiful things in a direct and pleasing fashion. Perhaps Coney Street needs to have more of that kind of thing, and perhaps in time it will.

. . . . . .

Thank you for your virtual coffees in support of this long-running record of York and its changes.

The post Coney Street concerns: notes and queries appeared first on York Stories.

Late 20th century plan of York city centre shops, Coney St

Time for a bit of gentle nostalgia …

Going back to those long-ago days of … the late 20th century. And the shops that then made up York’s city centre ‘retail offer’, via this interesting plan I found recently.

The plan records part of the city centre as I knew it, as many of us knew it. Above, Coney Street — generally seen as York’s main shopping street (or it was …) — and the area around it. It has many of the familiar high street shops, some names still part of our city centre, some not. BHS has gone, Woolworths has gone, Boots has since moved into the old Woolworths store. Around those large stores are many smaller retail units, many on the long thin plots stretching back to the river.

In the bottom right, a building that at the time was under alteration, to be Yates. Close by, in one of the small units near the steps up from the narrow lane I’ve written about before is Riverside Records (previously Songs and Stories, and mentioned on that earlier page).

The plan is from a 1996 planning application for the Davygate Centre site, as it was then. Hard to tell if it was put together in 1996 or some time before that. The Davygate Centre is marked in red and thick black outline on this section below.

Late 20th century plan of York city centre shops, Davygate Arcade

The Davygate Centre is no longer part of York’s shopping scene, but perhaps the image above provokes memories of shopping there, following its covered route from Davygate to New Street, or vice versa.

I think many people have fond memories of it. I don’t remember it too well, but it appears to have had a good selection of shops, including a computer shop, menswear stores Precinct and Traffic, a wool shop, Gillies Fabrics, a model shop, a camping and outdoor store, a hairdresser. It also had a shop called Weigh Out, which sounds like it sold foods loose, perhaps you could take your own container to be refilled? Anyone remember? (An idea that’s becoming more popular again, it seems.)

Also shown on the above plan is Athena, on nearby Feasegate. A place I do remember spending a lot of time in, coveting various posters, back in the 80s.

The plan also shows the area around St Sampson’s Square.

Late 20th century plan of York city centre shops, St Sampson’s Square and surrounding streets

Brown’s department store is the most obvious retail presence, and it’s still there, though so much around it has changed.

I’ve been trying to write some thoughts and observations on this area for some time, but it all got a bit long-winded, and needs some editing down. Clearly there are concerns over the changes in our town centres. Coney Street is a particularly interesting example of those changes. More on that story later.

For now, I hope this reminder of York’s late 20th century city centre shops is of interest to you, dear reader. (I used to use the phrase ‘dear readers’, but as the gaps between recent writings on here have been quite long recently I think there may only be one reader of it to address, the rest of the readers having drifted away to something more regularly written.)

I’d like to credit the creator of this plan, but there was no indication of who had put it together. It can be found within the planning statement (PDF) for application ref 16/02639/FUL, relating to 11 New Street.

. . . . .

Time for a cuppa, and a look at my half-written things on Coney Street, to see if I can turn them into something succinct and readable. If, dear reader, you’d like to support this resident’s record of York and its changes then virtual coffees are helping to power its pages. Thank you.

The post Plan of York city centre shops, late 20th century … Coney Street, Davygate Centre, etc appeared first on York Stories.

Clarence Street Co-op, Groves Chapel, April 2018

Well, this is pleasing. Pictured above, Groves Chapel, in April 2018.

Pictured below, the same building, many years back — one of the photos I included on a page about York chapels published in 2004.

Groves Chapel, 15 August 2004

In recent years – since 2013, when it was for sale – I’ve written about this building many times. There are many pages tagged ‘Groves Chapel’.

It’s a listed building. Owned by the NHS in recent decades, surplus to requirements for them more recently and in a rather neglected state, it was seen as a building ‘at risk’ by the time it was sold. The plan, once it found a buyer, was to include a Sainsbury’s on the ground floor and residential accommodation behind it, with the preservation of what remained of its historic features inside, mainly boxed off above the retail unit.

I’ve been observing and photographing the work on the building as it progressed, every now and then, and all seemed to progress as expected, with the small but significant difference that the retail unit appeared to be opening as a Co-op, not a Sainsbury’s as originally planned. I discovered this a couple of months back via a planning application for the shop’s signs, and it was later confirmed in local press reports.

Co-op at Groves Chapel, April 2018

So here we are with a Co-op on Clarence Street. Which is nice. Well, I think so.

Because back then (2013), when it was first on the market, a Co-op is what I thought it should be, if it was going to be a retail unit.

What I thought in 2013 …

Clearly the influence of the York Stories website is bigger than I realised …

Seriously though, I’ve lived close to this building for more than 20 years, have passed its boarded-up front doors so many times. Really nice, this spring, to walk through them, and to see this building so busy, with people coming and going.

Groves Chapel (Clarence St Co-op), exterior detail

I know it would have been nice, in an ideal world, to see some of the more imaginative ideas for this building realised, for us all to be able to see the historic bits opened up rather than just preserved and boxed off above the shop part, but all things considered (and the earlier pages I wrote considered it all at length, for example here), many local residents seem pleased with the outcome. Perhaps not those who live on Union Terrace, where the delivery vehicles unload.

So, looking inside …

The store’s shelving has been fitted around the original iron columns. These have been repainted and are handsome and colourful:

Groves Chapel columns, Clarence St Co-op

I first noticed them when the refurbishment was underway, when I stood on the low wall alongside the chapel to have a look at the interior (through windows made mucky by building work, so not the clearest image).

Groves Chapel interior, 11 June 2017

As you can see from the above, the original chapel gallery is still up there. It’s now preserved (or I assume so, as that was part of the planning application) along with other historic features of the original chapel, above the low ceiling of the shop. Just behind the columns to the front of the shop you can see the curve of the original gallery in the new shop ceiling.

Clarence St Co-op interior, looking towards the front doors of the former chapel, March 2018

Having supermarket shelving around old iron columns reminded me of the old Jacksons supermarket at 25 Bootham, but here, thankfully, there seems to be a bit more space than there was in that shop, as I recall.

Another ‘then and now’ comparison … first, during the refurbishment, from Lowther Street, one afternoon in spring last year, as the temporary roof went up over the old failing slate roof:

Groves Chapel, 19 March 2017, from Lowther St

This view from Lowther Street gives some idea of how impressive the chapel would have looked when originally built as a place of worship, facing the area of terraced streets known as the Groves.

And one evening in spring this year, soon after the Co-op opened, under a repaired roof:

Groves Chapel (Clarence St Co-op), March 2018

Looking rather welcoming, from Lowther Street. Now, in the 21st century,  bright lights and open doors and Co-op signs beckon across that broad and complicated junction where many roads meet. (Much quieter once, as this lovely old postcard shows.)

Recent York Press reports have referred to this redevelopment of Groves Chapel as ‘controversial’. I did my best to cover the various aspects of that controversy, back then. To me, the controversial part of this development was the marketing of the residential accommodation to the back of the chapel. As far as I’m aware local media didn’t give that any attention.

Old meets new: residential development at the back of Groves Chapel, from Union Terrace

Now, in early 2018, having shopped at our new local Co-op a few times, I can only report that it’s busy, popular, useful and welcoming, and that it’s nice to be going through the doors into a building that I’ve only ever known as a boarded-up front onto Clarence Street.

Footnote

I’m not able to write about York here on these pages as often as I once did, it varies according to other factors. But as the above makes clear, I’ve been writing about York here on this site for a long time. (So long that I sometimes hesitate to link back to the very early stuff — at times now some of my observations seem a bit naive and uninformed/embarrassing. But then, we all have to start somewhere, and I was the only person doing that particular kind of continuing study/exploration of York on a website online back then, as far as I’m aware. Some of it is perhaps still useful.)

Since then there have of course been long gaps at times between additions to this website, because it’s just me, just one person, and sometimes other things are more important.

The monthly hosting fees still have to be paid, to keep online the hundreds of pages built up over the years, and the comments added to them.

If you’d like to express appreciation for that, or help pay the hosting fees, virtual coffees are always welcome. I appreciate your appreciation, and hope these pages continue to be of interest, as a record of York and its changes. I still add to them as often as I can. You can join the mailing list if you’d like to know when new pages appear.

The post Groves Chapel: new Clarence Street Co-op appeared first on York Stories.

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

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