Comments on: Cinder Lane, the Fire House, and York Central

By: Lisa @YorkStories

Lisa @YorkStories — Tue, 11 May 2021 10:13:57 +0000

Hi David and Matthew - have located the earlier comment referred to, about the circus animals: see this link. It was on the page about the Capaldi's ice cream van, where we were trying to establish the location - Capaldi’s ices – Carlo’s van, 1950s.

By: Lisa @YorkStories

Lisa @YorkStories — Tue, 11 May 2021 10:10:50 +0000

David, thanks for adding this, really appreciate your evocative description. The Fire House sounds quite something, lovely to read about it when it was smart and in use.

By: Matthew Watson

Matthew Watson — Sun, 09 May 2021 14:52:10 +0000

David,

Thanks for the reply and for sharing the great story about the circus.

It would appear my memory is playing tricks! I think I started at St. Paul’s in 1973, the year I turned 5, and I would have only been that way before then to go to Sunday school at the church. We did walk past the old cattle docks every day for our school dinners as they were served in the hall on Dalton Terrace for the first few years I was at St. Paul’s. In those days the traffic was lighter on Holgate Road nut I doubt such a journey would be allowed today.

By: Nick Jones

Nick Jones — Thu, 06 May 2021 16:28:25 +0000

There is at least one other Cinder Lane in York, off East Parade in Heworth. Any others?

By: David Bower

David Bower — Tue, 04 May 2021 21:27:58 +0000

Mathew
British Railways stopped carrying livestock in 1972. My family left Upper St Paul’s Terrace in 1968, the year steam traction also finished on British Railways.
I believe though that the cattle docks probably ceased to be used before 1972. I got married in 1984, and returned to Holgate, living for several years on Railway Terrace. By that time the cattle docks were abandoned and overgrown, later becoming a small housing estate which still stands.
As I recounted on York Stories several years ago, as a small schoolboy at St Paul’s in the sixties, we would be taken to the cattle docks to see the arrival of the large travelling Circus’s by rail, and watch the elephants being walked over Holgate Bridge and down to the Knavesmire where the big top was set up. An amazing sight.

By: Matthew Watson

Matthew Watson — Tue, 04 May 2021 17:22:30 +0000

David,
You seem to have a few years on me so I don’t remember the fire house being occupied as you described. It was probably the late 70’s before I went that way often enough to remember being lifted to see through the railings. By then the place was in decline and the vandalism was increasing, which was a shame.

I went to school in your area so perhaps you could confirm if the cattle docks behind the wall at St. Paul’s School were still going at the time – mid 70’s? I vaguely remember standing at the entry gate (near the church) and seeing the railings and I think some animal dung (or perhaps I recollect the smell and made that up). I never saw it in use, but I believe the cattle went from there to the old market near the barbican. I only remember a few oil tankers parked there and lots of train spotters “copping” a few locos. I remember seeing a few steam specials from that spot before it all got cleared out and palisade fencing installed, blocking the view.