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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Groves Chapel with new access ramp added to ground floor retail unit, Jan 2018

The ground floor of Groves Chapel on Clarence Street was to be a retail unit for Sainsbury’s, in the approved plans I’ve written about before. It appears that it might be a Co-op shop instead. After reading this morning that the Co-op would be opening a store in York soon, I went off to the council’s planning application portal to see where that might be. There’s a planning application for signage on Groves Chapel, Co-op signs, but this application was then withdrawn. The Press today seemed to confirm that the new store would be on Clarence Street, though it didn’t say where. An email to the Co-op property group seemed like a good idea. The reply confirmed that the Groves Chapel Co-op store will be opening in spring. (Though it didn’t clarify why the planning application for the signage was withdrawn.)

When I first wrote about the chapel being for sale, back in autumn 2013, I wrote that I’d been thinking about what the building could be used for, and thought about a Co-op convenience store, noticeably lacking in this part of town.

If Sainsbury’s have pulled out of the planned store then that’s interesting too. But not interesting enough for me to pursue it and try to find out more.

Fans of Sainsbury’s can of course find another couple of their stores not far away from Groves Chapel, as mentioned on another earlier page.

Update, 15 Jan

There’s now another planning application for the proposed Co-op signs on the building: 17/03009/ADV.

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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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Artwork on the boarded-up windows of Groves Chapel, 22 April 2013

Today’s ‘April daily photo’ was taken on this day in 2013. It’s a piece of street art — part of ‘Phil’s Street Art Project’ — next to a rather tatty-looking advertising flier, both of them stuck on what appears to be an empty building, with boarded-up windows.

It’s actually the front of Groves Chapel, on Clarence Street. Phil and everyone else could have been forgiven for thinking it was an empty building, as it certainly looked like one. It’s had boarded-up windows for years and years. Since at least 2004, when I first took a photo of it, and probably for decades before that. Because the chapel hasn’t been used a chapel since the 1970s.

It is still in use, by the health service, though you wouldn’t know that from looking at it. And the sale of it, an unwanted property asset, puts funds back into the health service, though you wouldn’t know that from reading recent letters to the Press. The granting of planning permission for a convenience store and residential accommodation in and behind the existing building has provoked angry comment.

I find all this interesting, as I’ve been walking past this building for years, and have written about it several times since it went on the market. (And carry on doing so, as it’s interesting to follow the progress of the plans.) If it does house a Sainsbury’s convenience store then that will be very convenient for me, and hundreds of other people who live within walking distance. Most people I’ve spoken to who live near enough to be potential customers are in favour of the plans, as are many people who visit the nearby hospital regularly.

But people who live further away have felt strongly enough about it to write to the Press in response to the planning permission. One letter came from Brian Watson (former councillor) on Beckfield Lane (Acomb), who said it was the worst place in York for a supermarket, accompanied by another from a resident of St Paul’s Square (Holgate): ‘Filled with sadness as iconic building is turned into another supermarket‘.

I don’t like the idea of anyone being filled with sadness, particularly about a building, and particularly because I’ve felt great sadness myself on occasions about particular buildings. But that’s usually because the buildings were going to be destroyed, demolished. Groves Chapel isn’t. It’s being saved, and refurbished. Its impressively confident front will still proclaim its name and year of erection/opening in stone across the wide junction towards the Groves area it was built to serve. Hidden away from public view what’s left of the historic parts of its interior will be repaired and preserved above the supermarket’s ceiling. And a lot of the people in the Groves will no doubt flock over there to its entrance to buy groceries, just as our ancestors flocked over there to worship.

I appreciate that this change of use may be troubling. But the chapel presumably closed because of dwindling congregations, just like many others in this city and elsewhere, and because large grand chapel buildings like this are expensive to maintain.

Though they’ve not all closed. One was featured in the Press some months back: £3m plan announced to turn York city-centre church into community centre.

Letters and online comments about Groves Chapel have called it ‘iconic’, ‘beautiful’. It might have been once, but it’s a shadow of its former self inside. Whereas the Central Methodist chapel is beautiful inside, with similar features, but in this case preserved and cared for, and still in use, though it’s 40 years older than Groves Chapel.

It has characterful curved pews in its handsome gallery, colourful glass in its windows and a fine-sounding organ, which I heard on one memorable occasion, on one of the Heritage Open Days a few years back.

If we really care that much about these large Methodist chapels built by our ancestors then perhaps we could divert some of our energies and attention to supporting the Central Methodist church on St Saviourgate?

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The planning application for the redevelopment of Groves Chapel was approved at this afternoon’s Area Planning Sub-Committee.

I’ve written about the building and the planning application several times before on these pages, and watched the webcast of the discussion in the meeting this afternoon with great interest.

There have been angry comments online in response to the decision today, reflecting the anger felt by residents of Union Terrace, alongside the chapel. Many of them spoke at the meeting, eloquently, in the public participation section near the start of the meeting. You can watch it all online on YouTube, on this link, or below (starting at 4:18).

This application was given around an hour and a half, firstly commented upon by the residents who had attended and registered to speak, who had 3 minutes each, then discussed by councillors, with information given by council officers.

Reading about decisions on planning applications can give the impression that these things are somehow rushed through, rubber-stamped. Not so. Watching the webcasts is an interesting and enlightening experience, as I’ve said before. As a neutral observer on this one — I can see the arguments for and against, but don’t feel strongly either way — I thought it showed a group of people trying to do their best to reach the right decision, based on what was in front of them.

The vote at the end was 5 for and 5 against, but Chair John Galvin used his casting vote, as is the Chair’s right, which meant the application was approved.

Those of us watching the webcast could hear the reaction of the local residents off-camera, then see them as they left the room, with one man clearly upset and angry, another having a word with the Chair, or rather several, not clear on the recording but I think I picked up the word ‘conscience’. And thought about what a difficult job it is being a councillor and having to make these decisions in front of people who are thinking about their own street, when you’re having to think about the bigger picture.

It’s upsetting and worrying when the landscape around us changes, but it’s something many of us are familiar with, having to adapt to. And it has to be said that many people in the local area didn’t object to the planning application, saw nothing much to object to, all things considered.

Beyond the immediate neighbourhood the plans for this building did provoke a lot of comment and concern. It clearly captured the public interest. Was this because it was a former place of worship? Or because its proposed redevelopment involves the introduction of one of those controversial (though clearly successful and well-used) local supermarket chains?

Many other people have adapted to having a local supermarket on the corner of their street, and the residents of Union Terrace face that prospect too. I hope it’s not as bad as they fear, and that this building in its new guise settles in on its corner when its doors are open and its accommodation occupied.

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Inside Groves Chapel, 2015 (Photo: S Harrison Developments)

Another planning application I’ve been intending to mention is the one for Groves Chapel, at the end of Clarence Street. I would have mentioned it earlier but appear to have missed the fact that it was validated in mid December.

Planning application details and documents on the City of York Council website

The application reference number is 15/02833/FULM. There’s an accompanying application too, 15/02834/LBC, as it’s a listed building. Details of that on this link.

Photos of the interior show the state it’s in. The gallery area is dusty and unused, the ground floor has a strange metal box inserted into it, the paintwork is peeling and bits of it seem to contain small piles of rubble. The building will need major investment.

I went to the consultation event the developers held, back in October. Conversations with them and the information on the displays gave me a generally positive feeling about the proposals.

The gallery part of the chapel would be preserved. No public access to it, but then there hasn’t been any public access to it for decades.

If we want to support the continuation and maintenance of a fine old chapel, and public use of it, how about the Centenary Methodist Church on St Saviourgate, which is still in use, still has its fine old organ, and still has lovely old curved seating too, without debris all over it. More on that story later.

Inside Groves Chapel, 2015 (Photo: S Harrison Developments)

Inside Groves Chapel, 2015 (Photo: S Harrison Developments)

More concerning to me, just now, is how this planning application seems to have slipped under the radar. I’ve been looking out for it, as an interested resident, and generally look every Friday at the ‘weekly list’ option, to see what’s been validated (ie put online for comment) that week. I don’t remember seeing this one, would have mentioned it earlier if I did. If someone as ‘engaged’ as I am didn’t find it then I imagine many readers won’t be aware of it. And any planning application at this time of the year (it was apparently submitted in mid December) tends to get less attention. This year more than most, because of the floods.

An email included in the documents on that link above also raises concerns over the deadline for comment. The response states that the consultation deadline will not be at least until 25 January 2016 (document on this link (PDF)). So if you want to comment – object, support, or make a general comment, there’s still plenty of time to do so.

A church group has held a meeting recently about this planning application, and had apparently put in an offer for the building. I don’t have any more information on that, apart from what was reported in the Press. According to that, many residents are against the plans put forward in the planning application to have a Sainsbury’s store in the ground floor of the building.

I have to say that I know many other residents in the area don’t object to that at all, and seem in favour of it.

This building was a place of worship once, but hasn’t been since the 1970s. As under the current planning application the remnants and reminders of that are to be preserved, then perhaps that’s the best plan for the future of this building?

I’ve written about it several times before. For more information, and photos both old and recent, see the related pages links below.

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