New development, viewed from Dundas St/Palmer Lane, 31 March 2017

On the way to Lawrence Street I walked through the Hungate development. The most recent block of residential development has been unveiled. Its curved corner, facing the Dundas Street/Palmer Lane corner, is shown above. This new development is alongside the Foss, opposite Rowntree Wharf.

I rather like it. What do readers think?

The new build is tall, but so is Rowntree Wharf, and indeed everything appearing here is lofty, replacing the low ranges of light industrial units that occupied the site through the second half of the 20th century. The new buildings look good in the sunlight, though as each block goes up it blocks the light from the buildings around it.

Looking through these photos reminded me of how many I’ve taken in the Hungate development area over the years. I thought it might be interesting to include some ‘then and now’ views.

This photo dates from ten years ago, when the site had been cleared and hoardings were up around the various plots. Note the Foss Islands chimney in the background, a useful landmark for getting your bearings:

The Hungate area, 26 April 2007

The photo above was taken at what is apparently the junction of Carmelite Street, Hungate and Palmer Lane, though I confess I had to look up the street names on the map as this area has changed so much it’s quite disorientating.

Whatever the streets are called, I know that this photo from three years later shows roughly the same view, from roughly the same place:

Hungate area, 31 August 2010

By 2010 the first residential phase of building had been completed, creating a new street off Dundas Street.

And again, from roughly the same place, standing a little further back, the area as it looks now in spring 2017 (again, the chimney on the horizon may help with location and orientation):

Hungate area, 31 March 2017

On the right of the photo, in Carmelite Street, is St John Central (student accommodation). On the left is the side/back of the Hiscox building, which faces onto Peasholme Green/Stonebow. The recent residential build pictured at the top of the page is on the right if we continue straight on from here, following the road round that curved hoarding.

Eventually, presumably, the still-empty site inside that curved hoarding will also house a building, blocking the view shown above, and blocking light from the buildings behind it.

I had a half-hearted attempt at looking for information on the recently completed block here at Hungate, but found my search results were mainly ads for the properties, for sale or rent, at prices I doubt many people can afford.

On my wanders through the area I’ve usually also headed for the footbridge over the Foss to the walkway alongside Rowntree Wharf. Again, a comparison of ‘then and now’ photos suggests itself. Firstly this ancient image from a whole 13 years ago:

Hungate area from the Foss footbridge, 25 Jan 2004

Yes, January 2004. It’s not very big, because back then we didn’t have such high resolutions on our digital cameras, and rather small memory cards inside them.

Again, notice the Foss Islands Road chimney as a landmark. The photo was taken from the corner of the footbridge over the Foss, which is off camera to the right. The corner of the building in the foreground on the left is the Shambles multi-storey car park, dating from around 1990.

Moving on a few years, to 2007:

Hungate area from the Foss footbridge, 21 May 2007

No longer being used as a car park, and with signs of work underway on part of the Hungate redevelopment.

Leaping forward ten years, to now, spring 2017:

Hungate area from the Foss footbridge, 31 March 2017

The wall of the multi-storey car park still there on the left as an anchor to orientate ourselves, but the landmark chimney no longer visible, hidden by buildings — the first phase of building in the background to the left of this view, the most recent block dominating the centre ground. The Foss, still there off camera to the right, showing different reflections now.

Following the footbridge, to the side of Rowntree Wharf, gives us a view looking back over the Foss, towards Stonebow, with the Minster on the horizon. Here’s how it looked in 2011:

Hungate area from the Rowntree Wharf walkway, 26 Sept 2011

And how it looks now, spring 2017:

Hungate area from the Rowntree Wharf walkway, 31 March 2017

On the left, the block of student accommodation, on the right the recent building, and between them the back of the Hiscox building.

Quite dramatic, the changes here. This area was one of the first places I visited in my ‘York Walks’ of 2004, and it has been interesting to keep going back every now and then.

Those lengths of painted hoarding have been in place for quite some time. They’ve been used to display old photos of the area and also children’s artwork, which is a nice idea. I wrote about an earlier display some years back. The current one, just behind the Hiscox building, has some lovely pictures of wildlife:

Exhibition of children’s art on the hoardings in the Hungate area

Hedgehogs seem to be popular:

This is perhaps in connection with a wildlife area nearby, next to the Foss. We may explore that later.

For now, I hope you’ve enjoyed our Hungate wander. My new ‘tip jar’ is below …

And following a request from a reader, there’s a Google map to accompany this page, to help you get your bearings. It’s on this link.

. . . . .

It takes 3-4 hours to make a page like this.

From finding the right photos, to optimising and uploading them, then writing the page, with several re-readings and edits to make sure the text is as clearly written and as helpful/interesting as it can be, then adding in links to the other relevant pages, etc. In recognition of this, and the fact that this carefully compiled community-minded resource has been maintained for so many years, readers have asked if there’s a way to express thanks and offer support. So there’s a new way to do that, via the button below.

With thanks to readers for the 9 coffees received since the previous page — which have helped to power this one.

(via ko-fi.com. “Ko-fi helps creators get support from people who love what they do”)

For notifications of new pages appearing, join the mailing list or follow me on Twitter.

The post Hungate area developments: then and now appeared first on York Stories.

The location and context is clearer in this video. The massive crane on the Hiscox site is prominent in the background, in the view from Rowntree Wharf.

It’s not just the noise. I think many people near the busy brownfields will identify with this. Another short video, and a very powerful personal perspective, again from ‘yorkeye’ on YouTube.

I was interested to see a piece in the Press recently regarding a letter written by council leader James Alexander to Nick Clegg. It included his response to the idea that Government could ‘help fund proposed council tax reductions for people living near big new housing developments’.

I imagine the communities referred to are those living on the edge of the built-up areas, near the green belt, rather than those of us in the centre and suburbs. Here near the ‘brownfields’ we’ve been accommodating building sites for years. When I started this site there were many, mainly flats being built. It quietened down because of the recession, but now we’re off again with cranes looming over the Walmgate and Hungate areas. And of course many smaller developments too, in the suburbs. Building sites very close to buildings where people live and work.

I know I’m not alone being rather bemused and a little frustrated by some of the green belt lobbying, by people who are living in houses built in the last few decades on what was greenfield until recently.

Much of the lobbying to protect the green belt relies on our romantic attachments to any undeveloped ‘green and pleasant lands’. But it should be more honest. A lot of it is simply because those on the outskirts don’t want to lose their views and don’t want to live near a building site.

As the above videos illustrate, residents in the city centre have had to accommodate both of those things, the loss of views and the nuisance of building site noise. Perhaps the residents near the fields should accept that they too need to be more accommodating? We can’t build it all on the brownfields.

The post Living near the (noisy) brownfields appeared first on York Stories.

It’s not often I exclaim ‘Oh wow’ to myself in the middle of the street, but I did when I saw the size of this thing, looming massively, looming even more than Hilary House behind us.

The photo doesn’t do it justice so I’ll have to attempt to convey it words. On either side of us, historic buildings, framing the beginnings of a building for the 21st century, for Hiscox. Rising up from the middle of the site a huge drill-type thing, which I think is probably called a pile driver, paused and still and waiting for the next working day to begin. Behind it Rowntree Wharf, a big brave confident building from an earlier century. Behind that, the cranes over the Walmgate building sites.

By late October the Hiscox site, viewed from Dundas Street alongside, looked like this:

Viewed from the other side, Stonebow House loomed rather gloomily over the artist’s impression on the bright Hiscox hoardings:

One morning in early November I called back again to see how things were progressing. Beautiful sunny day, blue sky, very mild, and the site full of activity. Building sites can be a very positive sight, and this place is positively buzzing. It’s probably the most exciting building site I’ve visited in the course of my wanderings over these ten years.

Probably mainly because it’s a workplace, rather than yet more apartments.

Even the ads on the hoardings are a class above the usual thing, those rather silly ads for apartment developments. These are black, white and red, with confident, bold statements. Very classy indeed.

The hoardings also have an image of how it will look from Peasholme Green, alongside the Black Swan. An interesting contrast:

On sunny days over the winter, if I’m up that way, I’ll try to keep a record of progress. Many residents are watching developments with interest. I didn’t meet anyone else taking photos but I did have a nice chat with a man who was standing by the site watching that massive crane do its thing. Other people wandering by gazed up at it. The site has been empty and quiet for some years, and all this is quite a contrast.

I’ll end the page with another image taken on 3 November, from the side of the site, on Dundas Street. Which, when I started these wanderings ten years ago, was home to an ambulance station with rusty gates and just across the road an old coachworks building, low, functional, red brick, with a fading painted sign.

It’s certainly changed a bit around here in the Hungate development area. Just across the way my favourite urban brownfield buddleia forest still grows, but probably not for much longer. It too I guess will soon give way to concrete and cranes.

The post Hiscox site appeared first on York Stories.

August 2004, from Stonebow House, looking along Stonebow towards Peasholme Green. Across the remnants of Russell’s Used Car Centre, towards Wynsors World of Shoes. A shabby-looking street by this time, but when it cut through the medieval street pattern and made a new way through from Pavement to Peasholme Green in the 1950s I imagine it was an exciting local happening, particularly for the small number of people who had a car.

I wish I’d taken more photos back then, that morning in August ten years ago. But then I couldn’t see ahead to how much it would change, and I didn’t know I’d still be doing this.

But I am, so here’s the same view today:

View from Stonebow House, 25 Oct 2014

Well, the nearest I could get. There’s now a massive office block on what used to be Russell’s, and like everything built recently in the city centre it’s much taller than the low 20th century buildings. The new developments across the road are reflected in its windows, but it hides the happenings at the Hiscox site, which are moving on apace. More on that later perhaps.

And another from ten years ago, turning 90 degrees and facing the street of Stonebow, looking down Garden Place:

The telephone exchange on the right, and on the left another building demolished since as part of the redevelopment of the Hungate area. It sold furniture and oak flooring. Things now more usually sold from big boring sheds out on the outskirts of the city.

Changes here too:

The old street name of ‘Garden Place’ looked a bit daft in 2004, as any gardens here were long gone, but for the last few years it has had one, as part of the marketing suite for the Hungate development. The lawn and flowers thing does look a bit incongruous opposite Stonebow House, in the middle of the city, but the planting is regularly refreshed and does its best to distract our attention from the grey concrete of Stonebow House, opposite.

Behind the marketing suite, the massive new block of student accommodation for St John’s. I have a lot of photos of this from different angles, as I was startled by the size of it, as it grew and grew. Just one of many blocks of student accommodation in the city. The student population used to be less visible, out at Heslington on the campus. That this building, St John Central, is so massive and so — well, central — illustrates one of the most dramatic changes in the city over the last ten years, the huge increase in the student population. Of which much more could be said. Later perhaps.

Google Street View can’t capture the same angles as the photos above as they were taken from Stonebow House, but if you’d like to have a virtual wander down the street, here’s the area as captured by Google. (Mainly for the benefit of my many readers overseas and elsewhere who can’t visit in person.)

View Larger Map

I hope that displays for everyone as the Street View, which is currently showing the view in 2008. There’s a nice illustration of the changes in its transitions between images. If you move forward via the arrows you’ll see St John Central suddenly appear, as the next set of images recorded is from very recently, last month. If you keep moving forward down Stonebow to Peasholme Green you can see how work has begun on the Hiscox site, next to the Black Swan.

The post Stonebow area, 2004 and now appeared first on York Stories.

Foss-side buildings in 1990. I don’t know what these businesses were, but the buildings are long gone.

Where they once stood, it’s now mainly open space, still awaiting redevelopment. The new apartments built in recent years are to the back of this view, close to the line of trees.

The post Hungate area, 1990 appeared first on York Stories.

6 October 2011

This is the new bridge recently constructed over the Foss, between Navigation Road and the new Hungate area development.

New bridges are always welcome, even if, as I think was the case with this one, initial designs are challenged.

On my first visit, in late August, it hadn’t been opened, and I visited from the other side, where the views weren’t particularly photogenic. I’m not sure these are either. But this new route across the River Foss is certainly a welcome addition.

I haven’t yet heard what otters think, but they may have a view … (see below)

After failing to find it open the first time, the second time I visited was by bike, cycling from the other side of town, where I took advantage of the lovely cycle-friendly riverside route of Terry Avenue, cycled over the Millennium Bridge, thinking it would be nice to visit both of our modern cycle/pedestrian bridges in one journey.

Eventually made it to Navigation Road, and there at its bend was this new way across the river, for cyclists and pedestrians, cheery with lights, landing me on the opposite bank. Hurrah. What a great thing a new bridge is.

I called back, in pedestrian mode, in daylight, to take a few photos.

I’ve noticed there’s been a fair bit of complaining about the amount spent on provision for cyclists in this city – many people just like moaning about cyclists – but of course the opening up of new cycle routes is also opening up new routes for walkers. And wheelchair users too – unlike the pedestrian bridge a little further along the Foss, and the old Scarborough Bridge across the Ouse, these modern pedestrian bridges aren’t accessed by steps, but are sloped to land on the riverbank in a way that is friendly and accommodating. All good, methinks.

This one seems quite popular with pedestrians already.

Just as important is the improvement of the surrounding area – the (historically grubby/litter-filled) River Foss. Environmental improvements will include, according to press reports, ‘the creation of an otter holt with viewing platform.’

One of the comments in response to the York Press story asks: ‘Is this so the Otters can sit and watch pedestrians and cyclists use the new bridge?’

Lovely idea – I hope journalists will canvass otter opinion at some future date.

More information

June 2010 – Bridge kickstart for Hungate homes site? (York Press)

23 September 2011 – New Hungate bridge opens in York (York Press)

The post New Foss bridge, Hungate appeared first on York Stories.