Flowery delights by St Helen’s church, 7 July 2018

It has been a while, hasn’t it. But I can’t let another month go by without an update to this long-running record of York and its changes, so thought I’d share some images and thoughts gathered over recent weeks, during a summer that has been surprisingly hot and sunny for weeks on end.

This summer saw the first Bloom! York festival, celebrating all things horticultural, with some fantastic displays of floral loveliness. After dashing across York on a very hot afternoon earlier this month I particularly appreciated the coolness of Holy Trinity church on Micklegate, enhanced by the relaxing greenery of trees.

‘A Congregation of Trees’ – Bloom York, Holy Trinity, Micklegate, 7 July 2018

A cool place for quiet contemplation, with trees in tubs and birdsong through the speakers. Beautiful.

I didn’t get to see much of Bloom York, but what I saw was cheering and uplifting. Like Etty looking pretty, in Exhibition Square, adorned with flowers.

Etty statue, Exhibition Square – Bloom York, 7 July 2018

A fountain of flowers around the plinth, even some on the palette he’s holding.

I’ve written about Etty and the fountain and Exhibition Square many times before. The square is often virtually deserted when I pass in the evenings, when the art gallery overlooking it is closed. Quite a contrast to see it on this sunny Saturday afternoon, and good to see so many people enjoying the square, and particularly its fountain.

Exhibition Square, Bloom York, 7 July 2018

A page I wrote some years back about this fountain included this quote from a York Civic Trust annual report, published many years ago:

‘It is a pleasing thing to see young children running round the square thrilling to the dancing water.’

As it was in 1971 so it is now, or at least on this particular sunny summer day in 2018.

The greenery and flowers really did bring a feeling of celebration to the fountain and the square. (On that particular day when I took the photo above there was a general feeling of celebration, as I emerged from the quiet of the library to streets where people were spilling out of pubs singing ‘football’s coming home’ …)

Not far away from Exhibition Square is Dean’s Park, where greenery and flowers can be enjoyed all year round. And, usually, it’s a nicely calm and quiet place. Not so quiet this summer though, as there’s a summer attraction occupying part of it.

Sol Ast, Dean’s Park, 14 July 2018

According to the York Minster website this new bar/restaurant is from the team behind Thor’s tipi bar, which I think is usually in Parliament Street at a different time of the year, (and, according to the York Minster website, it’s ‘legendary’).

I sat on the grass outside the Sol Ast enclosure and observed its ambience. Clearly lots of people having a good time. The music from it rather clashed with the joyful exuberance of an excellent group of buskers performing within earshot in front of St Michael le Belfrey nearby. All very lively. Though I didn’t seem to be in the city centre at the right time to see and be shocked by all the stags and hens and general debauchery that I keep reading about in the local media.

York is often these days described as ‘vibrant’, and seems particularly lively on summer weekends. I’ve not been feeling particularly vibrant, after a recent family bereavement and illness, and an earlier attempt to venture to the vibrancy of Piccadilly left me saying to my companion that it was all too vibrant for me and that I wanted to go home and sit in the garden.

Some time later I revisited a site I’ve been following with interest for some years now, where the Spark:York development is now open.

Spark:York, Piccadilly, 20 June 2018

It’s certainly striking, as you approach from the junction with Merchantgate.

What was perhaps the most interesting aspect was hearing the sound of voices, many voices, people chatting while sitting out in the sun on the first floor level above the street. So much activity, on a site where I can still remember the quiet dereliction and emptiness of the Reynard’s garage building.

The opening of Spark:York hasn’t been universally welcomed, it’s fair to say. Yes, I’m choosing my words carefully and going for understatement rather than stoking things up further, as here on these pages we like to weigh things up and try to see everyone’s point of view.

Of interest at present regarding the Spark:York site is a follow-up planning application, requesting the approval of the exterior, which isn’t quite as presented in the original planning application.

Spark:York, side view from Piccadilly, 20 June 2018

The shipping containers were supposed to be behind ‘soft timber cladding’, according to the earlier plans as approved. Instead there’s some graffiti art on the side. The Guildhall Planning Panel comments on the planning application note their disappointment that the result is ‘more edgy than originally proposed’.

It may seem like a minor point but it does raise wider questions, all too complicated to go into on this page. Personally I’d rather valuable resources went into other things, rather than essentially pointless cladding to cover up some paint. But anyway, it seems that the matter is to be discussed and decided by the planning committee in August.

To clad, or not to clad, that is the question …

Guess where we’re going next …

Rose Theatre, side view, 14 July 2018

Just a stone’s throw away, on the other side of the Foss, is the much-anticipated ‘Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre’, here for the summer on part of the Castle car park. The side of the theatre structure looked a bit more shiny and modern than I was expecting, as I approached it from the riverside walkway by the Coppergate centre.

Is this some cladding which I see before me?

Rose Theatre, side view detail, 14 July 2018

Perhaps it could be donated to Spark:York when the theatre is taken down.

Inside here there’s what sounds like an impressive structure: ‘state-of-the-art scaffolding technology, corrugated iron and timber with the historic 13-sided design of a 16th century Shakespearean theatre’, says the website.

In my usual way, I’m doing the ‘observing from the outside for free’ thing. Here’s a photo of the entrance, which has heads on spikes and pigeons. The pigeons aren’t real ones. (And neither are the heads, obviously.)

Rose Theatre, entrance, 14 July 2018

Again, as on Piccadilly, what I noticed most was the noise, laughter and voices, happy people on a sunny afternoon. At Spark:York and at the Rose Theatre new structures had brought new life to these particular sites, in creative and interesting ways. Does it matter what the outside looks like? These things are only here for a while.

Whereas some structures have been here for centuries, loved and cherished. I’ll end this page with a familiar building I’ve written about many times in the past. It has known many many summers, and this summer it’s overlooking the Rose Theatre’s temporary site in the car park below.

Clifford’s Tower, 14 July 2018

Clifford’s Tower, with its grassy mound all brown and dry from the summer’s heatwave.

In recent months the controversial plan for a new visitor centre here at the foot of the steps has been abandoned, as I’m sure most readers know.

It will be interesting to see what new plans come to light for this area. It would be good if they could better represent the complex histories of this castle site, and how its buildings are linked, and how it has been shaped over the centuries.

. . . . .

So much happening in ‘vibrant’ York, and so much change and development, since I started this (my salad days, when I was green in judgement). Despite my recent rather long silence I’m still reading about many happenings — petitions and planning applications, demolitions and developments. It’s all very interesting and I’m sorry I’ve not had the time or the mental space to write much recently. I will do my best in terms of more regular content creation.

As I’m increasingly tired of social media and so many other online platforms (full of sound and fury), it feels more important than ever to preserve and continue this independent and carefully compiled online space of mine, even though it now means wading through more rules and virtual roadblocks (a sea of troubles), like trying to make an old site like this comply with GDPR regulations …

If you appreciate the perspectives on these pages, and enjoy this record of York and its changes then you can support it, and me, with virtual coffees via ko-fi.com, to power more pages, and help me with (the slings and arrows of) my bills …

Thank you.

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Coppergate Centre multi-storey car park and Clifford’s Tower, from Foss Bridge (2006)

On the previous page, after serious thoughts, and not wanting to ‘close low’ on this series of pages on the Castle Gateway area, I thought that it might be nice to take imaginary flight, picturing perhaps one of the city’s pigeons, so that we didn’t have to concern ourselves with the mundane issue of crossing the busy road of Tower Street.

Flying a short distance we find ourselves at the multi-storey car park attached to the Coppergate Centre. From up there on its higher levels we get a bird’s eye view of the area around it. Ten years ago I took a few photos from up there, and revisited this summer to capture similar views ten years on.

Here’s the first 2007 view, looking over part of Piccadilly:

Piccadilly buildings from the multi-storey car park, July 2007

Note the building in the foreground, with greenery growing from its gutter, a former car showroom apparently. To the left, a little further back, the old Reynard’s Garage (and former Airspeed factory). Also prominent is Ryedale House.

And here we are in 2017:

Piccadilly from the multi-storey car park, August 2017

Ten years on, the building in the foreground looks smart and clean. It’s now known as Piccadilly Lofts. I always liked that building, and it’s pleasing to see that it’s still here alongside the Foss. Also striking, I thought, in the photo above, is how Ryedale House looks better now it’s empty, without the various colours of blinds and curtains at its windows. Though there were plans to convert it to residential accommodation there’s been no progress on that front.

The other major difference is that the Reynard’s/Airspeed building on Piccadilly has been demolished. As previously mentioned, the cleared site is to be home to Spark:York, housed in shipping containers.

The former Reynard’s garage is more prominent in this closer view of Piccadilly, again from summer 2007:

Piccadilly and the entrance to Merchantgate, view from the multi-storey car park, July 2007

And this summer:

Piccadilly from the multi-storey car park, August 2017

In 2017, there’s an open area where the Reynards/Airspeed building used to be, and on the back wall of it a colourful mural is visible.

We’re close to the Foss, and moving to the left, we’re looking out over and along it, upstream. In 2007:

River Foss from the multi-storey car park, July 2007

And 2017:

River Foss view from the multi-storey car park, August 2017

The main difference is the new large St John Central building, student accommodation, in the Hungate development area, closing the view along the riverside towards Peasholme Green/Foss Islands. But the ‘Destructor’ chimney is still a landmark, as is Rowntree Wharf, to the right.

We’ve now moved beyond the ‘Castle Gateway’ area, as it has been defined. Here’s another view from ‘on high’, in 2007, taking in the wider landscape, to the Walmgate/Navigation Road area.

View across the Piccadilly and Walmgate area from the multi-storey car park, July 2007

We’ve moved to the right of where we were before. The building now known as Piccadilly Lofts is in the foreground, with the Foss just below it. Piccadilly is behind it, hidden from view. St Denys’s church on Walmgate is a landmark. There’s a large crane to the left of the church. In the far distance, hills are visible, an open landscape.

So much change, in the ten years since. Summer 2017:

View across the Piccadilly and Walmgate area from the multi-storey car park, August 2017

Student accommodation blocks on the horizon to the left, in the Walmgate/Navigation Road area. Close to St Denys’s church a development of town houses on a back plot behind Walmgate, next to the Spark:York site. Looking at them, with the grey and rather boxy/industrial upper storey, and noticing a similar look to other bits of the skyline around here, I’m wondering why there were so many comments suggesting that the Spark:York shipping containers were going to look horribly out of place in this area.

Here’s a closer view:

Piccadilly and Walmgate area rooftops, August 2017

In 2007 I didn’t take many photos of the views from up here. But on the recent visit the light was wonderful and everything was looking bright and handsome, so I took quite a lot, including, of course, a fair few of Clifford’s Tower.

Clifford’s Tower and its car park, August 2017

Recently there’s been so much focus on the more familiar view of this building, from the street level, from the front and the steps. Interesting to see it from up here. From here it looks a bit odd, that green mound, like the car park was there first and the historic structure has been plonked down on it. It reminded me of a jelly mould. A wider grass ‘apron’ around it might be more elegant and appropriate.

Clifford’s Tower, a less familiar view

And then here, it was like seeing a familiar thing afresh, and I realised that I rarely look at it from this side, or of course from so high up. From up here, looking across to it, it was good to see it framed by the greenery of trees rather than surrounded by tarmac.

Then to move round to another viewing point and see it rising above brick and pantile.

Clifford’s Tower across rooftops

And alongside the standalone iconic structure of Clifford’s Tower I also admired this pleasing streetscape, looking towards Peckitt Street, heading down to the Ouse. Again, the trees enhance it.

View across Tower Street towards Peckitt Street

To finish this page of ‘bird’s eye view’ images, a view of the Foss.

View of the river Foss by Piccadilly, looking towards Castle Mills, Aug 2017

So pleasing, I thought. It’s clear, from up here, that a green corridor has been formed by the Foss and the trees, shrubs and weeds around it, and on its (usually slow-moving) waters. We’re looking downstream, towards Castle Mills, the Foss Basin and the confluence, where we were on the previous pages. On one side of the river we have the Castle car park, stretching almost to the river’s edge, with a bit of walkway, grass and trees at its edge. At the other side, by Ryedale House, there’s the rather scruffy building, with the humped low roof. I’ve always found it rather pleasing.

Looking at this we then have to imagine what the proposed developments might change here. There’s an application to build a hotel (17/00429/FULM) on the site where the single storey building is now. That, of course, will be much taller, five or six storeys. Much loftier and more dominant than what’s there now. And if we lose the Castle car park and get more public space close to Clifford’s Tower we’re likely to get another sizeable building at the river’s edge, as suggested in published plans. So the reflections in the river will change, reflecting buildings, not light and sky so much.

Time to leave this area and focus on other things. There’s a lot to cover, and I’ve been thinking about Holgate. Time to fly off over there.

. . . . .

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The post Castle Gateway and beyond: from a different perspective, 2007 and 2017 appeared first on York Stories.

On Castle Mills bridge, city walls in the background

On the previous page, a few weeks back, we’d ascended the steps by Castle Mills Bridge, passing the sign for Brownie Dyke. My apologies for leaving anyone interested hanging about on one side of the river, in this imaginary walk around the Castle Gateway area. I really couldn’t write about/care about this in recent weeks. More important things going on.

We can cross the river now, over Castle Mills Bridge. And in doing so look back, to the steps, and the sign for Brownie Dyke, and the city walls just behind, pictured above. It’s easy to forget how close we are to the city walls, when we’re in the confluence/Foss Basin area, as the busy road with its traffic cuts through, making us less aware of this proximity, and how the landscape all links together, or used to.

After ascending the steps by Castle Mills bridge you have to walk some distance in either direction to find a pedestrian crossing. Or you wait, for a long while, for a gap in the traffic, as I had to after spotting these signs across the road and wanting to get a photo of them.

Signs by the castle walls: ‘These are not the City Walls’

These signs have been put up since I was last up this way taking notice of my surroundings. I was amused/interested, but was dashing past and thought I’d take a photo some other time, too much traffic in the way. But then remembered how I’d often wanted to take a photo of the old wooden sign for Brownie Dyke, and that I don’t seem to have one, and that it has since been replaced. So it seemed worthwhile to walk back a few yards, and to wait for what felt like a few years, for a gap in the traffic.

No chance of crossing without waiting even longer and then dashing across in a possibly dangerous fashion, so a photo from the opposite side of the road would have to do. My first three attempts were obscured by fast-moving cars, taxis, and a brave man on a bike tackling the rush-hour traffic, until at last an unobstructed view appeared.

Because of the distance, and it being a rather gloomy day, the images are rather fuzzy, but it’s worth a closer look at these signs.

‘These are not the City Walls’

I found the signs amusing when I saw them, but they’re also thought-provoking, now I’m back at home assembling this page. Years ago there would have been no need for these. That they’re there is all about this being a tourist-focused city, about the ‘visitor offer’ (a phrase I still can’t read without feeling a complicated mix of negative feelings). They’re there because of concerns about tourists getting lost, so we have to fill the place with explanatory signs, yet more visual clutter, usually detracting from the attractiveness of the place rather than adding to it.

And on this one, aiding visitors in the search for the other bit of the city walls, a Travelodge has become a landmark, an aid in wayfinding.

… And ‘These are not the City Walls’ either …

Just one of several Travelodges in the city and around the area, part of the general rush to invest in and profit from York and its ever-expanding ‘visitor offer’.

An article in the Press and a comment on Twitter highlighted the fact that the recent opening of the most recent York Travelodge — the one on Layerthorpe, which I’ve written about before — was attended by both the Lord Mayor and the York Central MP. I found this rather baffling/troubling. If it was the opening of a new bridge, or some other major thing of civic benefit to the city, to the residents, then the attendance might have made more sense. Maybe it’s just me. Anyway, moving on …

I continued on over the bridge, turning left at the entrance to the St George’s Field car park, and just to the left of that:

‘No public parking’, Foss Basin

We can’t park here, but that doesn’t matter, as I’m on foot, as usual. And because of that I can sidle past the barrier and park myself on the perimeter of the Foss Basin.

Foss Basin, 19 July 2017

As I did one afternoon ten years ago, in July 2007, and that was one of the reasons for revisiting here in July 2017.

On the previous page I included a couple of the photos from my 2007 visit here. I took quite a few, but they’re mainly quite dull. Mainly focusing on old bits of wood, trying to be arty, with a new digital camera I’d got that year.

One of the good things about digital photography is the timestamp automatically added to photos. From this I can see that there was a fairly lengthy gap, about 20 minutes, between the photos taken up on Castle Mills Bridge and later ones taken down here by the water. I remember that I just sat around for a while not taking photos, just being here and doing nothing much. Just absorbing the spirit of the place. One of the photos from 2007 will do, as an illustration.

Foss Basin, by Castle Mills, 16 July 2007

It was quiet. The photo above shows two people fishing on the car park side of the water and two or three people fishing on the Fishergate side, closer to the Foss Barrier. No one else around, as I recall, just me and them.

The My Castle Gateway project has asked us to think about what we want to be able to do in this area.

What I’d like to be able to do in the Castle Gateway area — or in particular these bits of it by the Foss — is the same as I already can, which is to find a quiet place with not many people around where I can sit and look at water and trees.

Looking behind, rather than ahead towards the confluence, there’s a striking architectural variation.

A mix of architecture, by Castle Mills, July 2017

The handsome structures are across the other side of the busy road previously mentioned, while the building in the foreground is here on this side, in the Foss Basin.

It’s quite scruffy here, around the Foss Basin, by Castle Mills. Weedy and quirky and a bit ramshackle. Not much of this kind of thing left now, in the city centre.

I’ve seen comments suggesting that the Foss Basin should be more lively, interesting, busier, and that it should look to Little Venice for inspiration.

‘Little Venice’ is in London. It’s a place named after/reminiscent of another place. For a part of York to aspire to being more like another place named after another place doesn’t really do it for me. Particularly as the word ‘affluent’ appears in descriptions of it. This city of York, in its centre, has gentrified itself already to a point where many of us barely recognise it. Making something posher and busier might bring in more money for a few people but it can alienate and push out the people who used to feel connected to the place.

I’ve felt increasingly disconnected from York, as it is now, as it has become. But down here, by Castle Mills lock, just me on my own, with the occasional person passing by on their way somewhere, I get it again, that feeling I get less often — rarely, now — in the historic core of the city I was born in and grew up in and have lived in for nearly fifty years. There’s so much here that speaks of the place that it was, and is, just small quiet things, unlabelled, overlooked, ordinary. The carved numbers, so carefully and beautifully done, at the edge of the lock, worn by water and time. 14, 15, 16. The maker’s name on ironwork associated with the lock’s operations. Stockton, it says. All the way from the Tees.

Many queries, things to look up later, or perhaps discuss back home. The kind of investigation of place and the details of place that ends up making amateur local historians of so many of us, as it goes on and on as we dig through the layers, pursuing particular interests in particular places, getting it at last, how it works.

This place sits quietly, with its stories, and soon no doubt there will be signs attempting to present those stories, in a simplified form, and the smartening up of it, and the painting of its ironwork, and the filling of its silence with chatter and no doubt there’ll be another café, or several, and all the people involved will be pleased and congratulate themselves on its reinvigoration. It will attract the ‘right kind of people’, according to the definition of people who call in to radio phone-ins and use phrases like that. I don’t feel I connect to what’s being said there, so maybe I’m not the right kind of person.

For now, this place is settled into itself, just there in the landscape, with so much to tell if we just put a bit of effort in, sit quietly, walk through it, look, read the old books.

As I’m drawing to a close this short series of pages on the Castle Gateway area, I don’t want to ‘close low’, to use a phrase that comes to mind from the controls on the nearby Castle Mills lock.

Castle Mills lock, detail, 19 July 2017

So let’s close high instead.

At this point those famous words of Orville the duck come to mind:

‘I wish I could fly way up to the sky but I can’t.’

But let’s pretend we can, as it saves trying to cross the busy road of Tower Street.

As a change from walking let’s take an imaginary flight … maybe not as Orville, who after all probably couldn’t actually fly … but as a pigeon, a good old robust city pigeon, they’re descended from rock doves you know … there are no cliffs nearby, but there is something fairly tall on the horizon, with numerous ledges … and we might be able to find the gap in the pigeon-deterring netting … we’re struggling through …

(more later)

. . . . .

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Blue Bridge, at the entrance to the ‘Foss Basin’

After crossing Blue Bridge, where we ended the previous page, I continued on from the confluence back towards town via the short length of towpath alongside the other side of the Foss, towards Castle Mills Bridge. This area is known as the Foss Basin. Again, as on previous pages, I find myself thinking about names, and looking at signs.

Before we ponder the names and the signs, a couple of ‘then and now’ views. Not going back many decades, just the one decade, to begin with.

Ten years ago, in July 2007, I went for one of my exploratory/photographic wanders and ended up here in the Foss Basin, taking a few photos, including this one, from the side of the Foss Barrier, towards the Castle Museum buildings in the distance.

Foss Basin from Foss Barrier, looking towards the castle area, 16 July 2007

No vessels moored here, in mid-July 2007. This may have been because of the high river levels and flooding in summer 2007. There are several men fishing, from the walkway on the right.

I revisited this July, ten years on, not quite to the day, but as near as I could manage.

Foss Basin from Foss Barrier, looking towards the castle area, 19 July 2017

There are bits of fencing up around the Foss Barrier structures to the left, because of the work to upgrade it. Here in the Foss Basin in 2017 several vessels are moored, including Selby Tony, aka the Arts Barge. No fishermen fishing, or at least not on the day I visited. There’s more greenery, from this viewpoint — the trees/shrubs have grown, most obviously.

Looking at images taken ten years apart in the same place prompts the question: what might the place look like ten years on from now? My Future York used the ten year period to encourage us to think ahead in a creative way, in a utopian kind of way. The My Castle Gateway consultation, currently gathering ideas, focuses on this particular part of York, an interconnected series of places now under the umbrella of ‘Castle Gateway’, of which the Foss Basin is a part.

It may not have changed much in the last ten years, but the changes a couple of centuries have brought are, as you might expect, more dramatic. This watercolour by Thomas Shotter Boys records how it used to look:

A view of Castle Mills bridge by Thomas Shotter Boys (Image courtesy of York Museums Trust. Public Domain)

And here’s the 2017 view. Ryedale House on Piccadilly is rather prominent, behind Castle Mills bridge.

It’s changed a bit … Castle Mills Bridge and the Foss Basin, July 2017

Castle Mills Bridge offers another good vantage point over the Foss Basin. Here’s another of my photos from July 2007.

Foss Basin from Castle Mills Bridge, 16 July 2007

In July this year, ten years on, also from Castle Mills Bridge:

Foss Basin from Castle Mills Bridge, 19 July 2017

At this end of things, the 2017 views seem less green than the 2007 ones. In the background is the scaffolding and other structures connected with the Foss Barrier upgrade. The most obvious thing is that the basin seems busier with barges and other vessels. Still quiet though, hardly anyone around.

Castle Mills lock from Castle Mills Bridge, 19 July 2017

This time I paid more attention to the details.

Castle Mills lock, detail, 19 July 2017

All the way from Stockton …

Castle Mills lock, detail, 19 July 2017

A highlight was again the wildlife, swans and their cygnets this time. The cygnets approached with low excited cheeps, then drifted off again, towards the confluence.

Cygnets in the Foss Basin, 19 July 2017

The naming of places

I wondered how long the term ‘Foss Basin’ has been in use. It sounds comparatively modern. In a book published in 1911 Thomas Parsons Cooper mentions it as ‘the pool which we to-day designate the Foss Basin’. When the name came into use it’s hard to tell, but it doesn’t say much about the history of the place, and sounds rather drab.

Castle Mills, on the other hand, does serve to remind us of structures that once were here, by the banks of the Foss. Though hard to imagine all that now, with the traffic rushing by, up on Castle Mills Bridge.

There’s another evocative name here, on a sign on the wall by the steps down from Castle Mills Bridge.

‘Brownie Dyke’ sign, by Castle Mills Bridge/Foss Basin

I’m sure I remember a wooden sign here originally, decades back. I wanted to get a photo of its faded charms, and perhaps did so, but I can’t find it. (As I recall it was similar in style to the one on Marygate.)

It’s a lovely old name, isn’t it. I wanted to find out more about ‘Brownie Dyke’, but couldn’t find anything much from an online search, until I tried a different spelling. Searching for ‘Browney Dyke’ unlocked it, and found a few references.

Browney Dyke, mentioned in a guidebook from 1855

The sign on the wall raises thoughts/questions about how careful we should be when adding official names to a place. I wonder when the first official sign went up to denote ‘Brownie Dyke’, naming it with the ‘ie’ rather than ‘ey’. Perhaps if any new signs are added explaining the history of the place they could include this older variation of the spelling, to aid anyone researching.

Access, or lack of it

I realised, as part of my ponderings, that I don’t think I’ve ever walked all the way along the Brownie Dyke path alongside the Foss Basin until this recent visit in July 2017. On the occasions I’ve been in this area I’ve approached it from the Blue Bridge end, rather than the busy traffic of town, and after going to the Foss Barrier to take photos of the view towards the Castle Museum I’d backtrack to Blue Bridge and use the riverside path by the Ouse, past Tower Gardens, to get back into town. This seemed to make more sense than climbing the steps by Castle Mills bridge at ‘Brownie Dyke’, which only takes you onto a road that is usually too busy to cross safely.

Castle Mills bridge has been rebuilt several times. This one is rather dull.

Castle Mills Bridge, from Castle Mills lock

In This is York, published in the early 1950s, C B Knight describes the previous bridge, which sounds far more interesting: ‘Much of the original construction can still be traced if you walk down by the side of the bridge.’

Not much of interest in the construction of the present bridge here, but I was struck by this enticing view under it. Framed by the bridge, the opposite bank on the other side of the bridge looked attractive, with a small section of riverside path, and all that pleasing greenery.

A view through: under Castle Mills Bridge, 19 July 2017

Attractive but inaccessible. Railings prevent us getting close to the water by the lock, there’s no way of crossing to the other side and no continuation of the towpath under the bridge even if we could. That green area over there is only accessible at present from the back of the Castle Museum. (It’s the site of Raindale Mill, which I admired on a page some years back.)

Plans for the Castle Gateway area might include new extended riverside access here. It’s an idea many people are keen on. It would indeed be nice to be able to go under the bridge rather than over it into the traffic.

But we are going over it, for the next page, as we head for a small bit of land on the other side of Castle Mills lock.

Up the steps to the Travelodge …

Further information

History of Castle Mills Bridge – York Press

Archive images of Castle Mills

. . . . .

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Signpost pointing to ‘St George’s’ (car park)

St George’s Field: where to start … Well, we already did, on the previous page, when looking at Tower Gardens. Tower Gardens used to be part of St George’s Field — something I hadn’t really thought about until focusing on this whole ‘Castle Gateway’ area with more attention.

St George’s Field is an area rich in history, a place that should resonate with meaning for citizens, but what is it now? The signpost pictured above, on the riverside near Tower Gardens, points the way to ‘St George’s’, and has a car park symbol. I thought we still called it St George’s Field, but that signpost doesn’t. Perhaps just as well, as visitors might be disappointed if expecting a field, some kind of flowery meadow with the Ouse lapping gently at its banks.

The names of familiar places are always worth thinking about. We tend to say them without thinking of how and where they originated, how long the name has been used, whether it was imposed on a place by authority or is one of the names locals call it. It could perhaps be seen as significant that the world ‘field’ isn’t on that sign. After a few more decades of the ‘field’ being covered in tarmac it might eventually drop that reference to its former appearance/associations, as Tower Gardens seems to have replaced the earlier name of St George’s Park/St George’s Gardens, as previously mentioned.

The citizens of York don’t seem to object to the fact that ‘our field’, with its ancient rights, is now a car park. In our recent history, in most of our remembering, if we think of it at all it’s as a car park, as it has been covered in tarmac and filled with cars and coaches for decades.

From trees, to tarmac, cars and coaches

Approaching it from Tower Gardens, passing under the archway of the Skeldergate Bridge approaches, we’re on a narrow strip of land that might be more likely to remind us of when this area was more green and field-like. Going through there and looking back to the bridge and Tower Gardens the treeline of New Walk is more obvious. Truly impressive trees here.

Riverside trees, New Walk, by Skeldergate Bridge, May 2014

But then we move away from the area immediately next to the river and the rest of our ‘field’ looks like this.

St George’s Field car park, July 2017

Over there on the horizon, slightly hidden behind trees, Clifford’s Tower and the spire of St Mary’s, Castlegate.

Here those buildings feature in a view from some centuries back:

Clifford’s Tower, Castlegate Postern etc from St. George’s Field, by Henry Cave. (Image courtesy of York Museums Trust: Public Domain)

Across St George’s Field towards the same buildings (or a couple of them) in July 2017:

Across St George’s Field (car park), 19 July 2017

This triangle of land between the Ouse and Foss is almost all covered with tarmac, and boring-looking but essential buildings like toilets, and looming over it on one side the Foss Barrier. This area is filled not only with the parked coaches and cars but cluttered with the accompanying ‘furniture’ of tall poles with lights and CCTV cameras and large signs providing information.

Past the coaches and cars parked here, towards Clifford’s Tower and the remnants of the castle wall, you can see how the roads carved it all up, raised themselves higher than the old land as it was.

But then people who arrive in coaches and cars need places to park, and this is one of several bits of Castle Gateway given over to parking. The most obvious is the car park right next to Clifford’s Tower, and there are many calls to remove that one. Comparing the two bits of land, it’s interesting to note that there seems to be more of a sense of ownership over the Clifford’s Tower/Castle car park site than there is over St George’s Field/car park, when in terms of land ownership and rights it should perhaps be this bit we’re fighting to ‘reclaim’. (Or perhaps both.)

Do many residents use it for parking when going in to town? Or is it almost all tourist/visitor parking? Does it matter if it’s the latter, as long as the income from it comes in to the city council? Have we had any say in the past about what happens on ‘our’ field, and do we still have the right to dry our washing here, and get our bows and arrows out, as our ancestors did …

Ah, so many questions, and so many layers of history here, in this piece of land where the rivers meet. Too much to cover on this page. Anyone interested should get hold of a copy of this book by Chris Dowell, which I’ve been reading with interest:

York St George’s Field: Not Just A Car Park, by Chris Dowell

Chris and John Dowell talk about aspects of St George’s Field, including the baths mentioned in comments on the previous page, in a series of short videos on the My Castle Gateway YouTube channel.

Fairs and fireworks

Apart from the St George’s Baths, the other association many York residents may have with St George’s Field is that it has been the site of the annual fair, talked about with fondness by Chris Dowell on the videos mentioned above. I remember being aware of the excitement of it, as a child/young person, but only because of the way friends talked about it, looking forward to going. I vaguely remember a brief visit as a teenager, one dark evening, all lights and noise. On another occasion, also quite a long time ago, I wandered past on a sunny Easter Sunday afternoon, noticing the massive painted lorries, and a discarded Frankenstein behind the rides. By then I was in my 30s and, and perhaps too old to enjoy it.

At the edge of the fairground, St George’s Field, Easter 2006

Discarded Frankenstein, St George’s Field fair, 2006

Other community gatherings have happened here. While searching through the YMT online collections for old illustrations I also found a listing for a poster they have from 1986, printed by the Open Road Printing Co-op. It advertised:

‘Firework Spectacular. Wednesday November 5th at Saint George’s Field Carpark. Display begins, 7.00pm. Admission free. City of York Leisure Services’.

Ah, the old days, when City of York Leisure Services had money to burn.

Anyone remember that firework display in 1986? Were there others here on St George’s Field? (I remember one from the early 1990s, at the Eye of York/Clifford’s Tower, and one in 2005, before they fizzled out as a free open-to-all city centre kind of thing.)

Future, and flowers

What else do we think of when we think of St George’s Field, and — as My Castle Gateway is asking — what do we want to see here, be able to do here, in the future?

There’s an online survey for the My Castle Gateway project on this link. Another way to contribute your thoughts if you’re not able to get to the events being held in association with this consultation.

Time to wander on from this particular bit of the Castle Gateway. From the tarmac-covered field we go back to the riverside path, to the confluence, where a well-known blue bridge takes us across the narrow Foss entrance, to the Foss Basin, the target for more musings/thoughts/photos, perhaps, next week.

By the Blue Bridge there’s a lovely area of wildflowers and bee-friendly flowers. Technically I think I ventured just outside the ‘Castle Gateway’ area boundary when I took this, but thought I’d share it anyway, after all those rather boring pictures of vehicles and tarmac.

Wildflowers by Blue Bridge, 19 July 2017

And here we might pause awhile by the confluence, and think about what a lovely word it is. A confluence is where two rivers meet, but another definition of it, suggested on this page, is ‘a convergence or combination of forces, people, or things’. Applicable, it seems, to the My Castle Gateway consultation, which is by residents, and for residents, and is attempting to bring together positive forces, many people, and a combination of thoughts on the many things that make up the Castle Gateway area.

Appropriate for future plans for a part of York where we/the council have ownership and rights over areas of land, and making far more sense to me than previous ‘visions’ for this area and others produced in the past (York Press). I hope we’re now past the point where we pay large amounts of money to outside experts for their ‘visions’/plans — it made me bristle with indignation back then. It’s now abundantly clear that there’s enough expertise locally, from many different perspectives, from people who know and understand the place, on many different levels, living and working here.

More later, perhaps. I’m off to stare at the river(s).

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Looking across Tower Gardens, towards Clifford’s Tower, July 2017

From Scarborough Bridge we proceed to another place where input is being encouraged on plans for future development. The previous imaginary journey was on foot/two wheels. For this one, as we’re already by the river, let’s board an imaginary boat, and glide gently and sedately along the Ouse. It’s not far. On our way to a small riverside park, we pass other riverside parks, the Museum Gardens on the left, the Memorial Gardens on the right, go under a couple of bridges (Lendal, Ouse) — with North Street Gardens on the river bank between them — and then just before the next impressive city bridge (Skeldergate) we disembark at Tower Gardens, opposite the Bonding Warehouse.

We’re at one edge of the ‘Castle Gateway’ area, discussed in an earlier page on the recent history of the area around Clifford’s Tower.

Having included all those links to other pages of mine I have to send you off to another website: My Castle Gateway. A collaboration between My Future York and City of York Council, it’s a fresh and interesting and invigorating approach to gathering ideas for this important area of the city. In this, as in all things, I’m an independent and impartial observer, but I think I know a good thing when I see it, and My Castle Gateway seems like a very Good Thing.

Interviews on the project’s YouTube channel include a video in which Philip Crowe suggests the felling of trees here in Tower Gardens to let in more light. A controversial idea, and one this self-confessed tree-hugger disagrees with, so a good place for me to start approaching the Castle Gateway project.

Before attempting to tackle that issue, and sharing with you some photos of the park taken recently, a bit of history has to feature.

A bit of history

I wanted to focus on the park known as Tower Gardens in terms of its present and its future, as that’s what the My Castle Gateway consultation is about. But I couldn’t help wondering what people had said about the place in the past, when it was new, and over the decades since.

This led to the discovery that Tower Gardens seems to be quite a recent name. Old postcards like this one and this one call it ‘St George’s Park’. In the official York guides I have from the 1970s to the early 1980s it’s referred to as St George’s Gardens.

When did the name change to ‘Tower Gardens’, and why?

The earlier name recognised that it was part of St George’s Field (called St George’s Close in some older documents).

Here’s Tower Gardens/St George’s Park/St George’s Gardens in the 1930s.

Tower Gardens in the 1930s. Photo: city archives, via York Images collection

St George’s Field has a long and rich history, including rights for citizens to use it. Nicely summed up by C B Knight in his charming book This is York, published in the 1950s:

… St. George’s Field, which has belonged to the citizens of York from time immemorial. Here every citizen had, and probably has still, the right to “walk, shoot with bow and arrows, and to dry linen”. I have often done the first, and probably some day the urge to do the others will prove irresistible.

When Skeldergate Bridge was built in the late nineteenth century its landing on this side of the river took away some of ‘our’ field. Perhaps no one minded at the time, wowed and dazzled by the new bridge.

Important to note though that the place we now call Tower Gardens, a small area of St George’s Field/Close, used to have a name resonant with these historical associations, reminding us of that ancient field/close. The present name links it to Clifford’s Tower — one of the city’s main visitor attractions. An interesting change of emphasis, I thought.

In the 1920s/30s this park was home to a First World War Tank. A ‘gift tank’, many towns and cities had them, apparently. (See the further information links at the foot of the page for more.)

Tower Gardens from Tower Street, with a tank on display, after the First World War. Photo: city archives, via York Images collection

In 2017

There are many places in the city that, if you’re asked to think about them critically, you might find many faults with, find they don’t quite work as they might, as you’d like them to, in an ideal world. Tower Gardens is perhaps one of those.

Tower Gardens is somewhere I’ve tended to walk through, across, rather than stay. This seems a common experience, and its diagonal paths cutting across the space acknowledge that this is what most people do. It seems from the old photographs that the diagonal paths across it have always been there.

So it’s a place to pass through. Is there much reason to stay? The café here, in the charming toll house/motor house building at the edge of Skeldergate Bridge, seems popular. There’s one pretty area of flower in the corner near South Esplanade. I looked around for other things of interest. There’s a rather grubby concrete plinth with a metal plaque on top of it explaining some of the history of the New Walk, which starts here.

Looking through some old photos I took ten years ago, in July 2007,  I was reminded that Warrington’s carousel was in the gardens back then.

Carousel in Tower Gardens, July 2007

It seems to be at the Eye of York instead now.

At least one tree has been removed since the photo above was taken. In 2017 there aren’t many trees in the area nearest to Tower Street, but there are a lot near to the riverside. Some of them on the line of the centuries-old New Walk, which continues on through the riverside walkway arch of the Skeldergate Bridge approach.

Trees in Tower Gardens, with Skeldergate Bridge in the background, July 2017

As mentioned above, Philip Crowe thinks the gardens would be better if some of these trees were felled. Is he right? If so, which ones? The thick-trunked very mature ones (casting the most shade) or the young ones? If so, who decides which ones are for the chop? They all seem in robust health. Looking at it from various angles, how is felling of healthy town centre trees justified? Some of the comments on Post-it notes gathered for My Castle Gateway refer to ‘moving’ the trees. They’re too big to move. They’d have to be sawn to bits with chainsaws.

Mature trees in city centres are precious, for many reasons, and should be treated as such. If grass doesn’t grow under them then perhaps it would be more sensible to give up on the grass. There’s grass all over the place, it’s so common we barely notice it, and most of it we appear to have no desire to sit on.

Just a thought, but maybe people would linger here longer if it looked like it was a cared-for place and if they didn’t have to sit on the grass/earth, if there were more benches? Is that too detailed/small-minded/boring an idea?

The benches here, or rather the lack of them, seems a fundamental factor in its failure to be a place people would stay awhile. There are benches around the circle of paving in the middle, and a group of people were sitting on them while I was there. I recall sitting on them myself once, but the positioning feels strange — basically around the middle bit of a busy pathway with people walking past/through. The more conventional approach of having traditional wooden benches with backs and armrests around the edge of a park — as at the Memorial Gardens — seems to work better in these formal spaces.

But then if you’re going to have a formal park it needs to look colourful and tidy and well-maintained. I’ve been quite surprised, on the occasions I’ve been through here, how tatty it looks. I’m all for wildflowers and the like, but some places, these civic spaces intended as formal gardens/parks, need to at least look maintained. It doesn’t need vast swathes of bedding plants. Perhaps we could just look after what’s there a bit better?

The grass under the trees was littered with bits of twig, and apparently goose moulting and goose droppings are a problem too. At least these rot down fairly easily and naturally, unlike the human-created waste sitting in bins and plastic bags by the gate, in front of the plaque indicating the height of various floods and an information board I doubt very few people read.

Flood marker, information board, and bins, by the Tower Gardens gates, July 2017

The fact that the park floods frequently does of course mean the planting has to be of things that can cope with those conditions.

Nearby, on the other side of the gate, barely visible as it’s grubby and bent and lost in leaf litter, is a metal marker.

Marker for ‘Souvenir d’Anne Frank’, Tower Gardens

I’ve seen this referred to as a memorial to Anne Frank, but it’s not just that, it’s marking the location of what used to be a rose, donated to the city (see York children attend Souvenir d’Anne Frank rose planting ceremony — York Press, 17/03/2012 and these photos on Flickr). I wonder if anyone recalls seeing it in bloom or knows what happened to it. There’s no rose there now. A letter to the York Press suggests it had died by the following year (Find another way, 27 June 2013).

But the trees are thriving. The suggestion that the healthiest and most vigorous things in the park should be removed strikes me as hard to justify.

Places work when we work with what’s there. Perhaps before imposing our ‘visions’/dreams on the place we should first work on understanding what we already have, and why. And perhaps that will make us value it more. The sad demise of the Anne Frank Rose is a reminder of how things usually work — we embrace the new, appreciate the event of a commemorative planting, but perhaps forget the rather less glamorous tending and maintaining of what’s there already.

Geese, geese, geese

Apparently this is one of the places blighted by geese, according to those people who have problems with geese. Having walked round the periphery of Tower Gardens and then through it, taking photos and looking carefully and noting its details and trying to tune in to its charms, I have to say that the highlight of the visit was the family of geese wandering up to me as I stopped for a while on the nearby riverside path.

Future: Arts Barge

As discussed previously, the Arts Barge could soon be moored here on the Ouse at Tower Gardens. Obviously that permanent mooring would change the place, giving a new focus to a small area that it at present trying to be an old-style municipal park and failing as that. Maybe we should see how that works out before chopping trees down.

Your thoughts?

As usual, all the opinions expressed are merely my own observations and thoughts. If it has prompted your own thoughts, dear readers, please see the links below for more information.

The My Castle Gateway consultation asks what we’d like to see/do in the various parts of the area under consideration. Here, in Tower Gardens, it looks quite simple to me: perhaps a few benches round the side, some more flood-resistant planting, and more tending of it on a more regular basis?

But if it’s a bit of a let-down at present let’s not blame it on the trees. Or the geese.

Here come the geese … on the riverside near Tower Gardens, July 2017

Further information

My Castle Gateway website, and see also the project’s Flickr pages for some of the suggestions and comments already submitted

Bold new approach to public engagement for the Castle Gateway project – City of York Council
and see also the background information: Major developments in Castle Gateway

Tanks for the memories – Stephen Lewis, York Press, on the Tower Gardens tank (4 March 2013)

Footnote

As I think the My Castle Gateway consultation is an important and thought-provoking thing I’m planning to add a few more pages on the bits of the area I’m particularly interested in over the next week/fortnight. Please call back soon if you’re interested in this area of York.

All the pages here on York Stories are carefully compiled, and, in the words of a song from the late 1970s: ‘it’s not for money and it’s not for fame, I just can’t explain’ …

But if you appreciate the care and attention that goes in to creating quality online content then virtual coffees are always appreciated. The previous ‘coffee money’ actually bought not coffees, but books, including a secondhand copy of the lovely C B Knight book quoted above, and another one on the river Foss and its history. More on that story later.

Thanks for your support of this resident’s record of York and its changes.

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