York Stories

Then and now: remodelled ‘eyesores’

Lisa @YorkStories — Sat, 06 Sep 2014 22:53:24 +0000

The way we were: York Walks, summer 2004, at www.yorkstories.co.uk

Back in 2004, in the ‘York Walks’ which formed the original version of this website, I put together a page with the title ‘Watch this space‘. It included several buildings widely condemned as ‘eyesores’ in the intervening years.

If you were indeed watching those places and spaces you’ll be aware that it took a long time, but that four of the six buildings featured are either back in use or on their way to being occupied.

Firstly, Shipton Street School, its main frontage on Shipton Street. Many years ago I also took a lot of photos of the other side of it, from the playground area. I have an update on those too, but for now, this was the face it presented to the street for a decade or so.

And now, in 2014:

Another wider view, also from Shipton Street, in 2004:

And in 2014:

The most obvious difference between the 2004 and 2014 views is the number of parked cars. There are several possible reasons for this, not necessarily to do with the Shipton St School development, though it may be. Perhaps someone who lives on or near Shipton St can add a resident’s perspective in the comments.

Less obvious, not obvious at all unless you happened to walk by when the windows weren’t boarded up, but the conversion to residential did change and perhaps spoil the windows. Inevitable. I might have some photos somewhere but they were that lovely old wobbly glass with interesting reflections, and no doubt on the inside the teacher had to use some kind of long pole with a hook on the end to open and close them. Or perhaps I’m having a memory resurface there from Mill Mount School. Anyway, the old school windows are gone, which is a shame. On the other hand, these windows are letting in light for the first time for a decade or more and the building is back in use.

Shipton St School is out in the suburbs so didn’t get that much attention. The Bonding Warehouse, on the other hand, is well-known. I’ve covered it in depth already on many pages over the last ten years, but I haven’t yet featured its completed bridge on the street side. Thanks to Gwen Swinburn for alerting me to this change.

Bonding Warehouse, Skeldergate side, in August 2004:

And from more or less the same vantage point now, 2014:

With very prominent and very ugly signs. The signs are apparently necessary to indicate the height of the bridge. The bridge was constructed to allow the residents of the upper floors to access their accommodation. I’d got the impression that they were to have some kind of temporary emergency bridge in case of floods, like the other residents of Skeldergate do, but clearly not.

The bridge itself is okay, its associated signs are … well, an eyesore. A word I avoid using as it tends to be indiscriminately and thoughtlessly applied to any empty boarded-up building. But here it seems appropriate.

Not that it really matters. They’re just really intrusive signs, and the city is full of them. At least those ridiculous Lendal Bridge ones have been removed.

Moving on to the city’s most famous eyesore … in 2004:

Like the Bonding Warehouse, this building has been the subject of several pages. Like the Bonding it was reoccupied eventually, or is in the process of being. Work continues on its conversion to residential and retail. The scaffolding was removed recently and here’s how it looked:

… not much different from before. Which was exactly what we the public wanted, when consulted. So that’s good, isn’t it.

. . . . . .

So, three substantial buildings sitting there boarded-up 10 years ago are now back in use or on their way to being so. Two are listed buildings so we had to keep them. The White Swan isn’t but it’s a pretty mock Tudor thing where it meets the street, and we wouldn’t make anything better than that now probably, so it’s sensible choosing to keep it.

There are still boarded-up buildings surviving, but only a couple of substantial ones I can think of. More on them and other things later, if someone wants to sponsor more hours of writing and compiling.

The other buildings featured on ‘Watch this space’ ten years ago were 1) Burton Croft, included on a recent page; 2) the Clifton hospital laundry (demolished) and 3) the St Clement’s church hall and associated house. They’re the subject of the next page.

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The new-look Bonding Warehouse …

Lisa @YorkStories — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 19:57:21 +0000

What else could it have been? …

I read with interest this evening the following comments, on Twitter, which I’m embedding here as an additional page in the ‘Bonding Warehouse collection’. I’ve written so much about the Bonding Warehouse over the years, and particularly just recently. So it’s over to @ralphharrington — and you, dear readers, if you have thoughts to add via the comments below.

The Bonding Warehouse here in York has had its character all but destroyed in the current conversion to luxury flats. pic.twitter.com/jQ5ZPkqSCB

— Ralph Harrington (@ralphharrington) April 28, 2014

Trashy white-framed glazed doors make a mockery of the warehouse’s former loading bays with their suburban patio look pic.twitter.com/oNrJBZIlbE — Ralph Harrington (@ralphharrington) April 28, 2014

Greatest exterior vandalism: original hipped twin roofs peeping from behind decorative cornice… [pic @YorkStories] pic.twitter.com/FYPeniJwVi

— Ralph Harrington (@ralphharrington) April 28, 2014

…replaced by overscale skyline-wrecking flat-topped tile-hung horror with mean little industrial estate windows. pic.twitter.com/dBE8a5cbEl — Ralph Harrington (@ralphharrington) April 28, 2014

Bonding Warehouse conversion amounts to crass money-driven vandalism, and it’s a disgrace that @CityofYork permitted it. A tragedy for #York

— Ralph Harrington (@ralphharrington) April 28, 2014

Your thoughts, dear readers, are welcome.

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Our Bonding Warehouse: 1990s, Comedy Shack

Lisa @YorkStories — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 22:36:54 +0000

Comedy Shack leaflet, Nov-Dec 1993

As I’m sure many of us remember, the Bonding wasn’t just a venue for music. Under the arched brick ceilings, by the iron pillars, we gathered around tables to watch many comedians whose names are now familiar.

In what I think is the last of this collection of pages on the Bonding Warehouse (‘Bonding Warehouse Week’ I should perhaps have called it), a few reminders of how the Bonding hosted comedy as well as music, thanks to Mike Bennett’s Comedy Shack.

I remember in particular: Jo Brand, Mark Thomas, and Jeremy Hardy. Here in York’s own Bonding Warehouse.

Press cutting, the end of the Comedy Shack, 1993 (Yorkshire Evening Press)

The Yorkshire Evening Press ‘Preview’ in November 1993 reported the imminent end of the Comedy Shack, a brave and and memorable venture, and one of the things making that building – the Bonding (as we called it) – ours, in that time.

Those of us who were lucky enough to be there might remember, as AJH did in a recent comment, ‘trying not to go to the loo during a performance for fear of being humiliated by an eagle eyed comedian’.

There are no doubt many copies of the Comedy Shack leaflets/posters in boxes in houses in York. But as far as I know there were only a couple of posters signed at the Bonding Warehouse by Jeremy Hardy. And one of them is mine.

Signed poster, Jeremy Hardy at the Bonding Warehouse, York

And this one had a declaration of love.

The cad … disappeared off back Down South and I’ve never seen him since.

Some more reminders of this time:

Comedy Shack, Bonding Warehouse, York – Nov-Dec 1993, programme

Comedy Shack leaflet, Nov-Dec 1993

Comedy Shack leaflet, Sept-Dec 1993

Comedy Shack, Bonding Warehouse, International Women’s Week event

Thanks again to Mike Bennett for making all this happen, at the Bonding Warehouse, when it was ours.

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Our Bonding Warehouse: music venue, 1990s

Lisa @YorkStories — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 21:21:27 +0000

Hunt saboteurs benefit gig, early 1990s, Bonding Warehouse

The Bonding Warehouse is being remodelled and gentrified. It was ours. It isn’t any more.

This place meant a lot to me, it did to many of us.

When I knew it best it was a place I associated with music. Thought I’d share a few documents rediscovered recently in boxes in the York Stories understairs cupboard ‘archive’, dating from the early 90s to just before it closed in 2000.

Though most of the images on this site are my own work, these aren’t. I’ve added photographer names where I know them.

Bonding Warehouse, early 90s gig

Poster for This Happy Breed and Muleskinners gig, 1992ish

Poster for This Happy Breed gig at Bonding Warehouse, 1993ish

Slider, at the Bonding Warehouse, 1995ish. Photo: ? (unknown)

A reminder of the interior, being at gigs there back then.

Slider, at the Bonding Warehouse, 1995ish. Photo: ? (unknown)

On the Bonding Warehouse balconies, probably 2000, its last summer before closure. Photo: Mark Haigh

The Surf Sluts, who used the upstairs of the Bonding for band practice, on its riverside balconies. These photos probably date from summer 2000, the Bonding’s last summer before closure. Or it could be 1999. Let’s pretend they’re definitely from the Bonding’s ‘Last Summer’, because that makes them more poignant.

In the background, Queen’s Staith, Ouse Bridge, and that massive hotel just past Ouse Bridge.

On the Bonding Warehouse balconies, not long before it closed. Photo: Mark Haigh

On the Bonding balconies: York’s own the Surf Sluts, 2000 or thereabouts

Just making sure we have a record of those balconies from all angles, as most of us will never set foot on them again. Here with the lamps of Skeldergate Bridge in the background.

Bonding Warehouse interior, June 2011. Photo: Graham Stewart

And finally, in 2011, all quiet and empty. Photo emailed to me a few years ago by Graham, who went to view the Bonding Warehouse when it was up for sale (again).

I’m not sure which part of the building this is, exactly. But when I put this photo and a few others online I had one memory surface above all the others – me and my friend Alison dancing rather drunkenly to this, holding glasses of wine, at the end of a long and noisy evening.

It’s now going to be expensive residential accommodation, possibly office space and possibly a restaurant. All rather dull really, compared to its former life. Just glad I knew this building back then. It really was ours, held so many memorable times for so many of us.

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Sailing by the Bonding Warehouse, long ago

Lisa @YorkStories — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 16:59:09 +0000

I’ve just found this fabulous image in the York Libraries and Archives online collection.

By the Bonding Warehouse, a long long time ago. (c) City of York Council

The Bonding Warehouse on the left, Clifford’s Tower in the distance. A flooded Ouse, a common sight. The focus of the picture is of course no longer a common sight. The image has been captioned ‘These sail barges are marooned by the floodwater near the Bonding Warehouse on Skeldergate.’

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The recent history of the Bonding Warehouse, in pictures: 1

Lisa @YorkStories — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 17:15:59 +0000

The abandoned Bonding, in winter sunlight, 2004

So work is now underway at the Bonding Warehouse. It has been empty since the floods of 2000. Well, most of the time. It has been briefly occupied several times in the last fourteen years – by builders, for a time, by protest groups on two occasions. By pigeons all the way through all of that.

For the last ten years I’ve been taking photos of it, every now and then, and captured some of this recent history. This page covers the years 2004-2007, to the point just before it was sold.

These first photos date from one of my earliest ‘York Walks’ (as I called the first pages of the York Stories website) in 2004. Yes, a whole ten years ago.

Once famous for live music

Though it hadn’t hosted any live music or functions for four years or more, the sign by the door remained.

How green is my brickwork

Bright winter sunlight lit the bright green mossy growth covering much of its exterior. An aesthetically pleasing combination against the Victorian red brick, but probably not a good sign. It looked generally mossy and damp, as if it had never quite dried out. As if four year old Ouse floodwater would come flowing out if you opened the door.

Pigeons provide added ornamentation

And the famous sign, with its missing letter, so the Press ended up calling it the ‘Bo Ding Warehouse’. Pigeons perching there, soaking up the sun.

No one seemed to care much about the Bonding Warehouse, at this point. It was just sitting there quietly rotting, or so it seemed. Until …

Briefly occupied, in summer 2004

In the summer of 2004 it was opened up and occupied by the York Peace Collective. I went along to have a look but didn’t venture inside, as the atmosphere at that point wasn’t quite as peaceful as the banner suggested.

Banners mention someone called Blair …

Another banner on the riverside during the 2004 occupation. Remember Tony Blair?

Stencilled stonework and decorated windows

Around the other side, graffiti stencilled onto the stonework.

Massive pigeon conference on Bonding Warehouse roof

While we humans couldn’t quite decide what to do with it, the pigeons claimed it. By late 2005 its roof was full of pigeons, and among the huge flock the occasional gull perched at the corners.

How green is my balcony

Nature takes over what we neglect. The building became very wildlife-friendly, growing its own little eco-systems. By 2006 a lawn appeared to have established itself on the riverside balconies.

On 13 September 2006 the Press reported that the building was to be sold.

That winter, squatters again occupied the building for a brief period (see links, below).

All this time – and in the years before the closure – the building was ‘ours’. The sense of ownership demonstrated not only by the occupations, but in letters to the paper. A letter from Alison Sinclair suggested that the building should, if sold, provide some form of leisure venue, as in the past:

Even if it is eventually sold off, if this function could continue, it would keep a building which belongs to the city, and is bound up with its heritage, accessible to the public.
(full text here)

Wasn’t to be. Sadly our Bonding Warehouse is lost to us.

I kept calling by and taking photos every now and then, as building work started and then stopped again, as the gates displayed thought-provoking graffiti. So let’s continue to page 2 of this recent history – 2007 to the present time …

page 1 | page 2