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.

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I’ve written a few pages about Groves Chapel (see this link for all of them) before the current redevelopment work started. It seems like time for an update. Above is a ‘hot off the press’ view of the building, taken on 12 June 2017.

Since the planning application for the site was approved, giving permission for conversion to a convenience store and residential accommodation, I’ve been following developments with interest.

As previously mentioned, it’s some time since the chapel was used as a place of worship — it has for many decades been owned and used by the NHS. But it’s still clearly a chapel building in appearance and has been used as such within living memory, and understandably the plans met with some opposition.

It was clearly designed to be an impressive and imposing building facing the Groves area, and Lowther Street in particular. It still is. I was genuinely impressed, earlier this year, while walking down Lowther Street towards it, to see the complicated structure under construction above its rather tired roof:

Clearly a temporary roof to cover the building while its roof was repaired (a complete re-slating, perhaps).

Some months on, here’s a view of the back of the building, on 12 June:

Also at the back, the framework goes in for new structures on what was the car park area, during the chapel’s decades in NHS use.

There has been some demolition, of a rear extension to the chapel, shown below on a photo from February this year and since removed:

Climbing on the low wall on one side of the chapel it is possible to have a look through the windows at the interior. Hard to get a good photo because of the usual building site muck on the windows, but I did my best:

It seems that the historic features remaining up there are to be boxed in, rather than removed. The iron pillars are interesting too, and will clearly have to remain. I wonder if any of them will be visible within the Sainsbury’s store. I remember the Jacksons supermarket on Bootham had similar freestanding pillars and that the supermarket shelving had been constructed around them. Resulting in a rather cramped layout, as I recall. A bit more space to play with here.

Seeing historic buildings retained and repaired and remodeled is always interesting. Building sites are generally seen as a sign that a place is thriving, new developments indicating growth and confidence. But perhaps for some of us our hearts might sink a little at this kind of thing:

I searched for info on ‘offmarket’, and it means what I thought it meant. On the website mentioned in that ad above you can read about ‘lucrative investment opportunities’ and how to build ‘a diverse property portfolio that is based on a mixture of income generation and capital growth’, with ‘high-quality real estate at undervalued prices’.

Like so many other recent examples, it reminds us that people with a lot of money to invest can buy up bits of the city and profit from it. Much talk of residential developments supplying ‘much-needed housing’, but the residential developments I’m seeing aren’t within the reach of the people who need the housing.

The logo for the development, on the bottom right of the sign above, caught my attention:

It appears to be the city arms, with the date of the chapel’s construction wrapped around it, topped off with an architectural detail.

I was quite surprised to see this symbol used in this context, for a private development being marketed by a company based in London selling flats to investors. Referring to the very useful book Heraldry and the Buildings of York, by Hugh Murray, I’m reminded of the many shields of arms on the city’s bridges and public buildings and structures. It’s an important civic symbol. One I thought you needed permission to use (see this story from the Press a few years back, when the BNP used it). Perhaps permission has been requested in this case, and given. If so I’d like to know more about that. Perhaps I’ve just misunderstood — heraldry isn’t my strong point.

Comments welcome, if you have information or thoughts to add.

But to bring cheer I thought I’d end the page with another sign noticed just a few doors along, as I walked off pondering, towards town. On the door of the club on Clarence Street:

Nice to see that the tradition of making a double ‘o’ into a pair of eyes when doing a handwritten sign is still going strong. I love this sign and it makes me smile every time I go past.

. . . . .

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(Uploaded to Panoramio by Idylwilde. Photo by William Hayes)
The postcard image is interesting in itself, but making it particularly special is the handwritten caption: ‘This is the square where you played as a boy’. Maybe sent, a century or so ago, from a parent to a grown-up son.

Most striking, in that one line, is the word ’square’. To us, now, this is a road junction. The idea that it was ever seen as a square seems ludicrous, as does the idea of children playing here.

To replicate the photo above I would have to stand in the middle of the road. Instead I’ve used the Google Street View image, as that seemed the easier and safer option:

View larger map

Google captured it at a quiet time of day. Often it has standing traffic at the lights in all directions.

This wider view includes Groves Chapel on the right. The street lamp has been replaced by traffic lights and the children have been replaced by a traffic island.

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Groves Chapel, a Wesleyan Methodist chapel dating from the early 1880s, is for sale. It’s at the end of Clarence Street, directly opposite the end of Lowther Street, and once served the Groves area of York, with seating for 800 people. It closed in the 1970s and has since been in health authority ownership.

As the front is boarded up (the entrance these days is at the back of the building) it has looked disused for a long while, though it was in use, by the hospital for training and as offices.

Apparently redundant now, and on the market. Hard to see an obvious use for a late 19th century chapel by a busy road junction, with parking only available round the back via a narrow road off a side street.

I pass it often and tend to take its presence for granted, but passing one November afternoon in 2004 I admired this sunlit side of the building, from Union Terrace.

It is Grade II listed, so demolition isn’t likely. I was idly wondering what it could be used for, and imagined a range of things I’d like it to be, including a Co-op mini supermarket (sadly lacking in this part of town, and my preferred brand of mini-supermarket). My partner liked the idea of it being a venue for live music.

Neither of those seems likely. And in fact, they’re forbidden. The brief sale brochure includes a note of a ‘restrictive covenant’:

‘The Purchaser covenants with the Vendors that no part of the Property shall be used for the manufacture distribution sale or supply of intoxicating liquors or for any purpose in connection with the organisation or practice of gambling in any of its forms or for use as a public dance hall.’

This chapel remembers it was a chapel, a Methodist chapel, and we’ll have no boozing, gambling or dancing here, thank you very much, it says, in a disapproving way.

Other chapels reused

There are of course former Methodist chapels all over York, in the centre and the suburbs, since reused in different ways, and if they had similar restrictive covenants at one time then they clearly don’t now. In recent years the Biltmore bar and Oscars have occupied the former chapel in Swinegate, built as the Central Mission Hall. The Banyan Bar opened this year in the former Ebenezer Chapel (more recently part of Borders bookshop) in Little Stonegate. A disused chapel on Goodramgate has shops occupying its ground floor — in recent times it had a betting shop right in the middle of what used to be its entrance.

When it was a place of worship

Groves Chapel when it was quite new, around 1900. The photo is probably by William Hayes, a local photographer. Note the railings and wall around the front, since removed, and the open area to the right, then a sports field, where the city’s hospital was built in the 1970s.

Here’s a photo of its interior, from this time of the year, harvest festival time, a century or more ago. Photo by William Hayes:

It’s hard to connect this chapel now to the Groves, the area opposite, the area it was built to serve. In the mid to late 19th century the Groves had filled up with terraced housing (much of it demolished in the 20th century and replaced with blocks of flats, in Penley’s Grove St and its side streets). Between the chapel and the Groves there’s now a busy junction, where Haxby Road, Wigginton Road and Clarence Street meet, and Lowther Street joins directly opposite. When it was built it beckoned its congregation with its impressive frontage confidently facing Lowther Street, unencumbered. Now the effect is rather lost behind traffic lights, modern railings and pedestrian islands in the middle of a busy road.

The Groves Chapel cost £5,721 to build. Now: ‘offers over £435,000 are invited’.

More information

Fancy buying the old Groves Chapel?: information here and more here (PDF)

Photo from the City of York archives of the chapel choir on a visit to Carperby, in 1906

. . . . .

Thanks to Mick Phythian on Twitter who alerted me to the fact that the building was for sale.

Update, November 2014

For many months the building displayed an ‘under offer’ sign over its for sale sign. On 7 November 2014 The Press reported ‘£5 million plans unveiled to turn historic York chapel into supermarket and flats‘. Sadly not a Co-op, as I’d hoped, but another Sainsbury’s. Roughly between the Sainsbury’s on Burton Stone Lane and the Sainsbury’s on Bootham, in a kind of triangle of Sainsbury’s stores.

Presumably part of the negotiations in the interim involved the removal of the restrictive covenant mentioned above regarding the sale of alcohol.

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