The Cocoa Works in all its complexity, in times past

Previously, we were at the Cocoa Works development, the former Rowntree factory buildings facing Haxby Road. These are just part of what used to be a very large site, shown on the old image above.

Behind the main factory buildings, demolition took place more than a decade ago to clear the rest of this part of the site, back to the Wigginton Road entrance. (Wigginton Road is indicated by a line of trees in the top left of the image above.) This large site was then known as Nestlé South — as Nestlé retained more modern buildings to the north.

The cleared area behind the main factory buildings is now known as Cocoa West, and a planning application for its redevelopment has recently been approved.

This is an important development — the future of a place so significant in the history of this city I call home — and I appreciated having some free time to focus on it again — so let’s continue the journey, with photos taken earlier this month.

We start where the previous page ended, by the arch of the bridge that carried Haxby Road over the railway line in times past. We were looking up from it, at the factory buildings, but now stay at its level, down in the cutting between roads.

Haxby Road bridge over the cycle track (former railway line), 12 Dec 2021

What was a railway line has for some decades been a cycle track.

There are so many of these brick-built bridges curving across former railway lines. Easier to appreciate them now, passing under them on two wheels or on foot. As is often the case, this one is graffiti-covered. It doesn’t bother me at all, personally, down here under the curve of the bridges, I like the creativity of it, the bright bursts of colour.

Graffiti, Haxby Road bridge, 12 Dec 2021

‘AND THEY KEEP ON WALKIN …’ it says.

So let’s keep on doing that. Passing under the arch of the bridge, and coming out into the late afternoon sunlight, we pass one end of the old factory buildings previously discussed, here viewed through trees.

Old factory – Cocoa Works -from the cycle track

The trees alongside this former railway line have grown a lot since the trains ran through here. This section to the south of the old factory site is a tree-shaded green tunnel for cyclists and pedestrians, and a much-appreciated and well-used link between Haxby Road and Wigginton Road.

We approach the curved brick bridge carrying Wigginton Road over what used to be a railway line.

Cycle track, approaching Wigginton Road, December 2021

Here, on the section of track near Wigginton Road, the factory had its own stop, Rowntree Halt. I was pleased to find some images, and even a film, from the days when the trains ran down here.

Passenger train approaching Rowntree Halt, late 1980s. Still from BFI film.

There was also a line in to the factory site, pictured here. (There are a couple more images of the line and platform at the bottom of this page too, and a nice photo and more information on this page.)

As we get to the bridge, on a winter afternoon, the sunlight is so low, but let’s hope there’s enough left to illuminate and illustrate ‘Cocoa West’ …

Cycle track and bridge, Wigginton Road, 12 Dec 2021

We take a right turn here just before the bridge, and it takes us on a short section of cycle path through more trees, passing one of the old factory clocks, and to the Wigginton Road entrance to what used to be the other part of the old factory site.

Cocoa West, Wigginton Road, 12 Dec 2021

It’s a very large site, the size perhaps not clear from the image above.

Most of its buildings were cleared some years back. On this side, one small gatehouse remains, to remind us of the factory with such a long history.

By the entrance to the old factory site, Wigginton Rd

In the background are the old factory buildings visited on the previous page.

In late afternoon sun back in December 2009 I took photos from this Wigginton Road entrance as the range of buildings on this side of the site were being demolished.

Demolition of former factory buildings, from Wigginton Rd, Dec 2009

Quite a collection of structures, different shapes and sizes. What a confectionery manufacturer needed back then, and doesn’t need now.

Demolition of former factory buildings, from Wigginton Rd, Dec 2009

Melangeur block before demolition, Dec 2009

This month, so many years on from the demolition pictured above, a planning application  has been approved for housing development here. The Cocoa West development was approved at a recent planning committee meeting. Not just approved, but welcomed:

Councillor Michael Pavlovic said: “It really is heartening to hear of an application that ticks quite so many boxes – it’s not something this committee is used to from developers.”

The planning application documents state:

Our vision is for Cocoa West to become an uplifting and sustainable neighbourhood, with productive, ecologically rich landscapes and crafted architecture that respects the site’s heritage and celebrates its legacy

— and include images of how it will look:

Image from plans for Cocoa West (ref 21/01371/FULM)

A new link will be made to the cycle track/former railway line (shown on the right of the image above).

This place has been a long-running thread through these York Stories pages. I don’t have close personal family connection to the factory, and probably didn’t appreciate the Rowntree approach, and its legacy, when I was younger, as much as I should have done, but have appreciated it more in more recent years. Over the years I’ve included many pages on the Rowntree factory (see all pages tagged Rowntree on this link).

Dear readers, your knowledge, insights, comments, and coffees, are welcome as always.

The post From Cocoa Works to Cocoa West appeared first on York Stories.

Some months on from my earlier visit, I noticed in passing recently that there have been some visible changes to the former Rowntree factory building — aka the Cocoa Works development. I know many readers have fond memories of this place, and that many are interested in its redevelopment. I went up that way on Sunday to take some photos.

Cocoa Works from Haxby Road, 12 Dec 2021

As always, its brickwork catches the late afternoon light rather handsomely from this side, above the shade in the winter streets below.

Back in autumn 2004, on one of my York Walks, (heading for the old Fever Hospital, though a page about it didn’t appear until much later), I passed that corner and took a photo of the factory glowing in the sunlight of that year.

Corner of the factory building, from Haxby Rd bridge, 4 Nov 2004

Clearly, judging by the steam coming from it, the building was still in use at that point, but I’m not sure what this part of it was used for. (If you do, please add a comment below.)

That’s many years back. This old factory has been empty for years, awaiting redevelopment. When I wrote about it earlier this year, though there was a new section of road alongside it, there wasn’t much to see in terms of work on the building itself, but now there is.

Cocoa Works, 12 Dec 2021

A major recent change visible from the street is the work to remove the factory windows. And so many windows there are …

Window removal underway, 12 Dec 2021

Further along the long frontage I stopped to take a photo from a familiar reference point I’ve used before to record the changes here (mainly nature taking over, and also razor wire at one point).

Main entrance, 12 Dec 2021

Another photo taken all those years back, 2004, to compare with the above:

Entrance to the factory, 4 Nov 2004

But back into the present, as our walk along the long factory frontage takes us to the end of this massive building.

End of the old place …

The winter sun shines through it, while the adverts on the hoardings below show how it will look in the future.

I then headed round to the side the sun was on, Cocoa West, via the cycle track (former railway line), with the factory brickwork still sunlit above. More on Cocoa West soon.

. . . . .

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The post Cocoa Works progress appeared first on York Stories.

‘Home Sweet Home’

On yesterday’s walk around the local patch I ended up at Haxby Road, at the old Rowntree factory. I hadn’t planned to go that way, but was on my way back home and it occurred to me that I probably should make a slight detour to see if any work had started yet on the redevelopment of the site.

Clearly it had, as the hoardings around the site made clear. Clever advertising slogan there: Home Sweet Home, as this of course was where so much confectionery was made, for so many decades.

The Rowntree name isn’t referenced in the naming of the development. It’s called the Cocoa Works. I guess I’d better start calling it that.

I walked along the factory frontage where the old railings and gates were hidden behind hoardings, with a few gaps.

Rusty Rowntree’s remnant, Cocoa Works site, 23 Jan 2021

Cocoa Works, work in progress at the old Rowntree factory, 23 Jan 2021

So many times over so many years I’ve stuck my camera through the main gate to take a photo of this entrance and the state of the land around it. Outbuildings to the left have been demolished since I was last up here. They were pictured on one of my earlier pages, on the factory frontage, in Feb 2013.  Blimey, nearly eight years ago. This building has been empty for so long.

Checking back on my earlier pages about this place I can see that there were many (most should appear in the ‘Related posts’ below), and that it’s almost exactly four years since I published a piece about the planning application for this development.

After taking the photo above I noticed a small section of the old factory railing, with an interesting history/archaeology of paint and rust.

Rowntree factory railing remnant, 23 Jan 2021

As I got to the end of the factory site I was quite surprised. Quite a dramatic change here: there’s a new road in.

Cocoa works development: new road, 23 Jan 2021

New road, 23 Jan 2021

It made me realise I hadn’t been up this way to look at this place for quite some time, and it was quite something to see a road running through it. Not that I could go any further along it, as it’s part of the building site and therefore gated off, but still, always interesting to see the opening up of new ways through old places.

New road, past the ‘home of Kit Kat’, 23 Jan 2021

It curves through past factories old and new. These days the manufacturing of Kit-Kat takes place in the building on the right.

On the horizon, just visible, are houses on Wigginton Road. The road is planned to go through to Wigginton Road, eventually.

I took many more photos, but as you can see, the light was quite low by this time and so it wasn’t that easy to get good images (particularly as I’ve had to go back to using a rather old digital camera after my newer one stopped working some time ago).

I headed back, past the factory and the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library, and the many adverts for the development all along the site boundary.

‘A new community’, 23 Jan 2021

I crossed the bridge over the former railway line (now cycle track). The late sun is pleasing as it lights this end of the building.

Lit by late afternoon sun, 23 April 2021

Sadly the rather handsome top bit, a bit castle-like, will be altered by the conversion to residential, as previously discussed.

. . . . .

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From the cycle track, July 2011

On Tuesday (24 January) I received an email invitation to an exhibition of plans for the old Rowntree factory buildings. The plans were to be displayed in the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library in front of the factory, for one day only, that afternoon and evening.

This page includes some information from that event, from the display boards, as I know that many people who would have been interested didn’t know about it. And it needs to be widely known about, I reckon. Even more important than the Terry’s development, I reckon. Some personal opinions follow. Feel free to add your own, in the comments.

Plans for the Cocoa Works: redevelopment of Rowntree factory buildings

Sheds/chalets on the roof

I was pleased to be inside the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library. More on that story later.

I really wasn’t pleased to see this proposal on how the building behind it might look:

Proposed extra bit on top of the factory buildings

Note the addition, above the original parapet.

This is a massive factory building. This illustration shows an extra floor added, and I really don’t know what to say. These days I don’t tend to fling terms like ‘greedy developers’ into my pages. But I don’t know how else to react to this.

It ruins the building, looks cheap. It looks like a load of sheds, or holiday chalets, plonked on the top, to maximise profit. Six floors already I think? Is that not enough?

Here’s another view of how those cheeky sheds/chalets might look, from the southern approach (from town, heading out of town), again from the display boards:

Additions proposed on the top of the Rowntree factory buildings

The remaining factory buildings are in general quite plain and functional. The sheer bulk of what’s left is still impressive, but the really impressive bit is the corner you see when approaching from town, heading out on Haxby Road. Or from the cycle track below, where its proud corner is seen to best advantage. The former route of the railway line that used to link to the factory.

From the cycle track, July 2011

The former Rowntree factory still towers proud above it. If you know the local landscape and its history it’s full of significance. Full of meaning and memory, collective York memory.

Imagine that photo above with the shed-like/chalet thing sticking up above it.

If the proposals go ahead I’ll look the other way when cycling or walking past it, and not be able to look up at it with fondness and York-based understanding and pride, as I do now.

Does that matter? Maybe not, if the main need is to maximise profit/cram as many people into it as possible. But is that where we’ve got to? The limit of our aspirations?

It takes years to understand the place, get to know its meanings, what things stand for, why they’re important. I’m still learning, we all are.

But in the end it probably doesn’t matter what we know or don’t, as it’s all about the money, profit.

I’ve tried to be tolerant and accepting of inevitable change, but this goes beyond my limits of tolerance. I hope that we’ll all oppose the imposing of a tasteless extra layer on this important landmark building.

I’m not sure about a campaign slogan. ‘Fight the chalets’/’Oppose the sheds’?

Road … only for buses?

The proposals include a new road, cutting through across the site between Wigginton Road and Haxby Road, alongside the retained factory buildings. I’m not a car driver, but I know how horrendously congested Wigginton Road is, around the Crichton Ave junction in particular. So a road through to relieve some of that, so that all the cars aren’t heading for the fork where Haxby Road and Wigginton Road meet, the junction in front of Groves Chapel, what a great opportunity to disperse some of that traffic, in a more logical way.

But it seems this new road is just for buses. It seems to have some bollard thing in the middle preventing it being used as a link road between Wigginton Road and Haxby Road.

Whereas my impression is that a link road to relieve the traffic on Wigginton Road is exactly what we need in this area, and that to build a road and then not let most people use it is really quite illogical.

I’m baffled about this. Perhaps someone else can add more info on why a road is being constructed at great expense just for buses to use. What a waste.

But then, this current scheme can only build half of the road anyway, as Newby have only half the site.

In context

To put this site into its wider context, again with an image from the display boards, the red boundary line shows the site in question:

Cocoa Works development, site boundary

It’s part of the Nestle South site, not all of it. Behind it is a large area where many of the old Rowntree factory buildings were cleared, some years ago. The site we’re looking at on this page is the most impressive part, fronting on to Haxby Road. The main factory buildings, with the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library in front, and trees and garden areas.

Cocoa Works, site plans: “Access and Transport”, from the 24 Jan 2017 exhibition

Convenience store

The plans show a convenience store at the edge of the site, on the corner of the new road where it meets Haxby Road. It’s the strange triangular shape on the image above. If it was a Co-op that would be great, as we don’t have a Co-op on this side of town. But it will probably end up being something disappointing like a Spar.

And the library …

Well, it was nice to be in the library, and I ended up taking more photos of it than I did of the display boards. As the library is a listed building it will be part of the plans, but from information available it seems likely it might end up being some kind of concierge thing for the accommodation in the factory buildings behind. So not very inspiring really, for a building erected in gratitude for the life of Joseph Rowntree. But the owners can do what they like with it. They could try to be true to the spirit of the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library, understand and respect the place, be philanthropic, be visionary, thoughtful … or they could just turn it into a place for the people in the flats to collect parcels.

In gratitude

Publicity and consultation

I couldn’t find any more information online about the exhibition of these plans. I asked about this, and was sent the leaflet distributed to local residents, which I shared on Twitter, within hours of receiving it, but too late for many people to get to the exhibition.

Apparently it had also been advertised in the Press, but despite searching, I couldn’t find the information on the Press website.

Below is a copy of the questionnaire/survey I picked up from the event. (Which I had to scan, convert to PDF, and upload. Medal please …)

I don’t need a medal really. Just please, people of York, people of anywhere, stop the chalets on the roof.

oneill-associates-cocoa-works-dev-questionnaire-jan2017 (PDF)

The PDF should give you some idea of what the ‘consultation’ event asked for responses on, and you can see in due course if they took any notice.

You can also email responses to enquiries@oneill-associates.co.uk by 3 February 2017. If you do so, I suggest you put ‘Cocoa Works plans’ in the subject line and ask for an acknowledgement that your views will be noted.

There’s a planning application to follow, which of course will be the main opportunity to comment.

Too large and complex a scheme to cover adequately in one page. It’s taken many hours already but it needs returning to later.

. . . . .

If you’d like to be kept informed of new additions to this site please join the mailing list. 
It’s quite frustrating that people like me have to fill in the gaps, try to get info out there. I don’t get paid for doing this. Please have a look at supporting this site in 2017.

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Razor wire by the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library, Sept 2016

After a summer break it’s time for a wander. Let’s start on Haxby Road, with a look at the old Rowntree factory buildings, again. This seems like a good idea for several reasons:

— it follows on nicely from Alison Sinclair’s guest contribution on the city’s other famous chocolate factory, Terry’s
— because of a recent comment in response to one of my earlier pages on these buildings
— and because of the rolls of razor wire decorating the Haxby Road frontage, which I’ve been meaning to mention since I first noticed them, back in May.

Roll out the razor wire … Nestlé/Rowntree Conservation Area, Sept 2016

These buildings here, the remnants of Rowntree’s, were designated a Conservation Area some years back.

According to the council’s own guidance:

Conservation areas have extra planning controls applied to them to help preserve or enhance their character and protect their settings.

These controls apparently mean permission is needed for a range of alterations, including minor details like installing satellite dishes. There’s no specific mention of whether permission is needed to unravel great long rolls of razor wire all around buildings in a Conservation Area, but personally I found it didn’t really enhance the character of this important group of buildings.

I’ve popped by every now and then over the years to take photos here. The main factory entrance, as it was, some years apart:

Rowntree factory main entrance, March 2012

Rowntree factory main entrance, September 2016

It hasn’t looked impressive for many years now. But the main difference between the two images above, four years apart, is the razor wire.

Closer view: former factory entrance, and razor wire, Sept 2016

Perhaps this is one interpretation of ‘protecting a setting’? It’s clearly intended to protect the property from potential trespassers. But just look at this vicious stuff. All around a place famous for its fairness and kindliness.

Behind the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library: buddleia and razor wire, Sept 2016

The site is overflowing with foliage, including the ubiquitous buddleia. The local wildlife will have benefited from its fenced-off emptiness. Birds, bats, bees, possibly larger beasts like hedgehogs and urban foxes. I’m a bit worried about any hedgehogs snuffling about in there, with the razor wire all around it, across the grass and through the bushes.

Presumably Nestlé still own the site, or at least have some interest in it. They did a fine and thoughtful thing in the work on the old factory clocks, a few years back. There has been some management of the weediness around the entrance. Personally the weediness didn’t bother me: at least it was wildlife-friendly. The razor wire really isn’t though, is it.

Hard to imagine that massive factory building finding a new use, and if it is to find one, it will presumably take years before work even starts. So rolls of razor wire around the place for years then?

Former Rowntree factory buildings, Sept 2016

In front of the massive factory block is a much smaller and more handsome building. I’ve written about that before too.

While it’s understandable that the huge factory building is still empty, it’s harder to understand why this building still is. The Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library, as it states proudly above the door. I wonder what he’d think about our lack of action in finding a new use for this. Years now it has been sitting there empty. Now with rolls of razor wire around it.

Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library, Sept 2016

So much is said so often about the city’s proud chocolate-related heritage. We’re really good at promoting it to visitors, selling it. In recent years we’ve also become really good at recording the oral history part of it, collecting the stories of people who worked in the chocolate factories. And over at the Terry’s site there’s a lot of interest in what happens to its landmark clock tower, seen as iconic.

This factory remnant isn’t as pretty, and doesn’t have a clock tower visible for miles around. What remains of the factory block is still a landmark in the local neighbourhood, and particularly from Haxby Road, as I fully recognised when approaching it to take these photos, last week.

But more important, and very different from Terry’s, is its clustered effect, onto the street. Buildings together telling the story of what the Rowntree family aimed for and achieved, a community of buildings for the workforce. A collection of buildings recognised as important because of that, and therefore designated a Conservation Area.

Nestlé presumably have enough funds to pay for security guards, if that’s what’s needed to protect the premises. So why the razor wire?

And the empty library …  if it was in a different part of the city, it might it have been reused already. It’s only small, it’s Grade II listed, it’s handsome inside, apparently. It could be reused in a way that would benefit the wider community, celebrating the legacy of the Rowntree family, and Joseph Rowntree in particular. It could be reused as … well, a library seems the most obvious.

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Terry’s factory buildings, April 2010. Photo: Lisa @YorkStories

A guest contribution from architectural historian Alison Sinclair, on the Listed Building Consent application for the Terry’s factory clock tower — a plan to convert it into residential accommodation

A little over eighteen months ago, the York Environment Forum held an open meeting on behalf of the Leeds University research project ‘Living with History’, with the object of finding out what local people thought about the future use of Terry’s Clock tower, as an alternative to its conversion to residential use as was being proposed. Our Open Forum came up with a number of alternative suggestions for the Grade II Listed Building which were incorporated into a report which was sent to anyone who left a contact address, as well as to the City Council and to the developers.

As has recently been publicised in The Press, an application has now been submitted to the City Council for the subdivision of the Tower and the attached boiler house and pump house to form 22 apartments:

16/01647/LBC | Refurbishment and sub-division of former Clock Tower and Boiler House to form 22no. apartments with associated car parking, landscape works and access from Bishopthorpe Road | The Clock Tower Bishopthorpe Road York

It is proposed to achieve this by the insertion of additional floors into the tower itself, and by extending the two attached buildings upwards by adding extra floors. Provision of adequate light to the new flats in the Tower will require the enlargement of some of the existing windows, as well as the renewal of their glazing. Doing all this will change the character and appearance of the buildings by enlarging them and levelling and raising their stepped profile.

Terry’s clock tower, July 2007. Photo: Lisa @YorkStories

There is in fact some discrepancy in the number of flats proposed as contained in two of the supporting documents to the Planning Application, in which the number of flats proposed in one is 21, and in the other, 22.

Clearly, no account seems to have been taken of the suggestions for future uses in the Tower which were put forward by our Open Forum. The following is the list of suggestions:

• There should be public access to the tower which should include public space
• There should be a public access to a view point and viewing gallery at the top of the tower
• There should be an art centre, exhibition space and /or museum
• A museum could tell the story of chocolate-making and /or the history of horse racing
• A restaurant
• The tower should provide a link with local business
• Sports facilities – including scuba diving in the water tank (!)
• Part of a Terry’s / Goddards / chocolate tourist trail linked to the City centre using mini-buses and the river

No information is included in the application about how the famous Terry’s clock will be restored. This has been identified by The Antiquarian Horological Society as of national importance, being one of only two of its kind in the UK still working when the factory closed. It was also identified in the Development Brief for the site as “the most visually recognisable feature …” as well as one of the “landmarks and symbols for York” on the factory site.

It is of course a long time since the clock worked, and it is somehow apposite that the function and purpose of the Tower is being denied while the symbol of that purpose is being disregarded.

Terry’s factory clock tower, 19 Aug 2012. Photo: Kopex, flickr.com

One of the justifications for creating flats in the buildings put forward with the application is that the proposals for the conversion of the Clock Tower/ Boiler House building will provide much needed new housing for York. This is obviously a fact, but the question has to be asked about who is likely to buy a Clock Tower flat, which is likely to be small, possibly in a gated building, and hardly suitable for family living. Nor will any of them be ‘affordable’ housing as the developers have indicated they are not required to provide any ‘affordable’ housing on the Terry’s site. So these 21 or 22 flats are not likely to make much of an impact on the City’s acute housing needs.

The application is available for comment on the City of York Council website https://planningaccess.york.gov.uk/online-applications/:

16/01647/LBC 

It is hoped that a Community Forum will be held specifically to consider this application which has altered from any of the schemes for the Clock Tower previously publicised. This is a little questionable however, as the developers have claimed that they do not need an additional community event in the light of previous consultations. Much of the evidence of ‘community involvement’ submitted with this application relates to earlier events which did not include consideration of this specific scheme.

It is nevertheless hoped that the Council will require another consultation to be held. They have been asked to arrange this in conjunction with the developers but so far with no response.

It is of course the holiday period now when many people are distracted by other things. But anyone who has concerns about the future of the clock tower is urged to go online and register their concerns; and to keep a watch for notification of a public meeting at some future date yet to be decided, at which this scheme will be thoroughly aired to the local community.

— Alison Sinclair

Alison Sinclair worked for English Heritage for ten years. Her last contract before retirement was the revision of the Statutory List of Buildings of Architectural and Historic interest for York, during which she was responsible for the designation of Terry’s Clock Tower as a Listed Building.  She has been a member of the York Conservation Areas Advisory Panel since 1990, and was the founder and first Chair of the York Open Planning Forum.

More information

The Twentieth Century Society featured the clock tower as Building of the month in April 2016

The Terry’s factory buildings have featured on York Stories several times over the years. See ‘related pages’, below.

Lisa @YorkStories is having a summer break from writing but will return to more regular updates to this website as soon as possible. (If you’d like notification of this and other updates, join the mailing list.)

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