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.

There’s a planning application, still open for comment at the time of writing, to convert this to … yes, residential accommodation. As with Hilary House and Holgate Villa and perhaps, at some point, Ryedale House.

Some years ago I had an email about this building from someone who wanted to research its history. Clearly it doesn’t have a long history, it’s about as old as I am, but I helped as much as I could, and hoped I’d hear back. As is so often the case, I didn’t. So I can’t tell you whether in fact this building won awards as my correspondent wondered. I can tell you that it looked photogenic in the bright sunlight of a summer morning. But then most things do.

It’s another of those massive office blocks, and like Holgate Villa it’s a British Rail building, or rather, was. Purpose-built for BR staff. BR had so many office staff here in York in the mid to late 20th century. Often forgotten, in the recent emphasis on the chocolate industry, that so many residents worked for the railway industry, not only for the carriageworks but also many hundreds (thousands?) in the railway offices.

It may soon be occupied by people making it their home rather than carving out a little space for themselves on an office desk.

It’s a building in an excellent location, and no doubt with excellent views too. It’s near Micklegate, which would benefit from having such a large increase in the number of local residents. It also has car parking space. If all that wasn’t enough to make it a potentially desirable place to live, fans of beer may be interested to know that it’s also right opposite York Brewery, on Toft Green. It’s shown here reflected in the windows of that building.

And here in its wider setting, in Toft Green.

We’re perhaps more familiar with it from the other side, from the walkway of the city walls.

And it’s from the walls that I remember this building, really well, going back 30+ years to the early 1980s, lunchtimes from school, when we sometimes wandered along here on the wall walk, and could see all those men at their desks. A lot of them, as I recall, seemed to be staring out of the windows, from their desks. Now, of course, we don’t need to look out of windows when we’re bored, we can look at Facebook and Twitter instead. A different kind of window on the world.

But let’s go back to those pre-internet times, via a few extracts from books published in 1970-1980, when this building was quite new. What did they think of it then, I wondered. My small library of books bought at secondhand bookshops gives some insight.

1970

Hudson House all new and apparently white/pale grey, a year or two after it was built. Compare with my 2014 photos above.

I’ve sometimes wondered whether its present colouring is a natural weathering or whether it’s had some kind of treatment in the intervening years. It looks surprisingly brown now.

In the accompanying text, from this book published in 1970, Patrick Nuttgens sounds quite impressed by this ‘well designed modern building’.

1975

An interesting perspective from 1975, from John Harvey. ‘Massively repetitive’ and ‘horrifying in its likeness to an inspection hive’.

1980

John Hutchinson thought it ‘one of the most successful of York’s new buildings’.

More information

Here on York Stories: more ‘office block studies‘

115 flats planned for city-centre offices (The Press, 12 Nov 2014). The comments are also worth reading. Note that the building, like Stonebow House, is referred to as a listed building in one comment. Like Stonebow House, it isn’t. Where do these myths originate, I wonder.

Planning application (ref 14/02579/ORC). The planning statement (PDF) is an interesting read

Interesting snippet of info discovered when Googling, on the sale of this building by British Rail (Residuary) Board in 2006-7

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Recently I included a page on Stonebow House. In its iconic ugliness it perhaps distracts attention from other less startling erections of the period. Like one just down the road, on St Saviour’s Place.

Hilary House, from the end of St Saviourgate. Framed by, looming over, the handsome buildings of that street.

What were they thinking. (And, update – there’s now a suggestion it could be made taller.)

I’ve seen it stated that the infamous architect John Poulson designed Stonebow House. He didn’t. He designed this building, Hilary House. (See ‘Elsewhere on the web’, below, for sources.)

Let’s see if it looks better with some blue sky behind it. No, not much.

Round the back on Aldwark it looks far worse. Here’s a photo taken in 2004, from Aldwark, over the top of a wheelie bin. Normally I’d try to avoid getting a wheelie bin in the photo, but in this case it didn’t seem to matter.

Just look at it, with its forlorn car park and the Minster peering over the buildings in the background, looking shocked.

I think at the time I thought that the plastic tube thing was an indication that they were demolishing the place. Sadly not.

Hilary House was built in 1964, before Aldwark was remodelled into a desirable residential area with carefully planned housing filling the gaps between historic buildings. It arrived on the scene when this area was fairly run down and industrial, so perhaps it didn’t matter then that its Aldwark side is so utterly charmless — sudden area of car park, complete with concrete bollards, concrete planter, opening out from the otherwise handsome street frontage into sudden ‘ah, sod it’ streetscape.

Back on St Saviourgate, its front view, where it looks a little better in bright sunlight in March, but then everything does.

From the city walls, the stretch between Monk Bar and Layerthorpe, the most dominant intrusion is not Stonebow House, but Hilary House: that big block sticking up over these carefully integrated houses. Stonebow House behind, just visible.

(Photo: © City of York Council)
Until Hilary House was built in 1964 the buildings at the end of St Saviourgate framed a massive chapel frontage with tall columns. It was designed by J P Pritchett (who also designed the far more beautiful York Cemetery chapel, and the lost deanery in Dean’s Park).

By the 1960s many of those nonconformist chapels built in the 19th century had outlived their usefulness. Looking around the city now, in 2013, it seems the same might be said of large office blocks like Hilary House, apparently empty now.

I think it’s always better to reuse buildings rather than demolish them, but if Hilary House disappeared I really wouldn’t mind. Would anyone?

Elsewhere on the web, sources etc

Information on/references to Hilary House in York Central Historic Core Conservation Area Appraisal – Character areas, 8: Aldwark, City of York Council website
and Downtown York, Ron Cooke, York Civic Trust

J. G. L. Poulson Ltd., architects, Pontefract, catalogue records from National Archives. Includes several references to York properties, including St Saviour’s Place (aka Hilary House) and gas board premises on Davygate, also designed by Poulson (since demolished, replaced by Panter Hudspith development (pdf)).

John Poulson, architect, Wikipedia

Hilary House is included in the City of York Office Stock Availability reports and has a Grade C rating. I’m not an expert but I think that means it’s not top of the range office space.

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The university is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. This fantastic film follows the building of the university campus. It begins with an introduction to the city of York then follows the building work at Heslington. Makes you appreciate this great achievement, and conveys the excitement of the building project and the opening of this new university for York.

Notable moments:
2.50 Cars driving down Stonegate. It didn’t become a footstreet until the following decade
3.05 Interior of St John’s church, Micklegate, occupied by the Institute of Architectural Studies. More familiar to many of us as the Arts Centre, in later years.
3.08 Kings Manor, many interior shots
14.45 Lord James of Rusholme, pipe in hand, talks about the university

Patrick Nuttgens describes its creation in York: the Continuing City:

Another photo from the 1978 Summer Spectacular, featuring more dancing, and a man in dungarees. Younger readers perhaps won’t have seen dungarees before, but they were quite the thing around this time. No, no one knows why.

Thanks to Andy Tuckwell for these photos. More of Andy’s photos of the event are viewable in this online album.

I hope to get over to the university when the weather warms and brightens, to get some long-overdue photos of both the 1960s buildings and more recent additions.

For now, you may be interested in the excellent website they’ve put together to celebrate their first 50 years. And if the film or the photos have prompted memories, the university would like to hear from you. See this page for more details.

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This is a short film of still shots – a slideshow: ‘Vintage Volkswagens on the streets of York’. I know, it doesn’t sound exciting, unless you’re a vintage VW enthusiast. But this is definitely worth a look if you like old photos of ‘real York’, if you’re interested in the way the city has changed, and particularly if you remember York in the 1960s/70s.

28 Nov, update: List below of locations – some of these weren’t immediately obvious. Thanks to Mallory, Jim, A, and Google street view for assistance in finding them.

Credit for the list below, me: www.yorkstories.co.uk.

0.01 Acomb Court
0.03 Aldwark, across car park of Hilary House (Google Street View)
0.06 Bar Lane/Micklegate
0.08 Beckfield Lane, Acomb
0.11 Blake St
0.15 Blake St (shop advertising Cigarettes, right, now McDonalds)
0.18 Blake St (same stretch, ?different date?)
0.20 Blossom St
0.23 Car park, now site of Coppergate Centre
0.27 Clarence St
0.30 Castle Howard Ox, Townend St
0.33 Clarence St, St John’s side
0.35 Duncombe Place
0.39 Blossom St end, East Mount Rd on right
0.41 East Parade, Heworth
0.44 Exhibition Sq
0.47 Fulford Rd, entrance to St Oswald’s Rd on left
0.50 Gillygate (back of nos. 29-37), from Bootham Row car park
0.52 Goodramgate (Ogleforth corner)
0.56 Hayley’s Terrace (nr Yearsley Baths)
0.59 King’s Staith
1.02 Cumberland St, looking towards River Ouse
1.04 King’s Staith/Cumberland St
1.07 Micklegate
1.11 Micklegate – lovely view
1.14 Milner St, Acomb (corner with School St)
1.17 Ogleforth
1.19 Parliament St from St Sampson’s Square
1.22 Parliament St, (gents loos, before ‘Splash Palace’)
1.25 Patrick Pool, off Church St
1.28 Monkgate end of Penley Grove St
1.31 Monkgate end of Penley Grove St, with WMC
1.34 as above
1.37 Car park by ABC cinema, Piccadilly
1.40 Presumably as above, ?Ryedale House Piccadilly on right
1.43 Queen St, car park nr station
1.47 Skeldergate
1.49 Spen Lane
1.52 St Sampson’s Square
1.55 Station from bar walls
1.58 car park behind station (Leeman Rd)
2.01 car park behind station
2.03 Stonegate
2.06 Tower St
2.09 YWCA, Water Lane, Clifton (since demolished)
2.12 York Rd, Acomb

The photographer, while focussing on cars and vans, accidentally captured ordinary corners in the ordinary streets so many of us grew up in and knew. Including a tree I climbed as a child, which was chopped down years ago. Thank you, VW photographer and Teddyboy53Rocker.

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Parliament Street before it had the ‘Splash Palace’ toilet block and the trees, when it was filled with market stalls (and that cute Capaldi ice cream kiosk which has sneaked in on the end there, in front of ‘Modelia’).

This presumably dates from pre-1964, when the market moved round the corner to Newgate.

I think it was probably taken from an upstairs window of what is now York’s most well-known ‘eyesore’ building – the White Swan Hotel on Piccadilly.

Ideas were being sought recently for remodelling this end of Parliament Street – now the toilet block is being demolished – and perhaps altering the layout of the junction. How about this 1960s ‘big roundabout with grass and bedding plants’ idea?

Thanks to Jamie for the photo.

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