2 Rougier Street, from just outside the city walls, 7 May 2021

Previously we were peering into a pond just outside the city walls. Now it’s time to look upwards, to a clock, and the building it’s on, just inside the city walls. Yes, it’s time to admire the majestic skyline of Rougier Street …

This ‘landmark’ building, 2 Rougier Street, was previously insurance company offices. It has been included on these pages before. Adverts in decades past featured rather stylish hand-drawn illustrations of the building.

2 Rougier Street, 1970s advert

I’ve also previously mentioned its clock, when compiling pages about the various clocks to be seen on the city streets. The one on this building was for a while one of the city’s many stopped clocks, but is now showing the right time. I guess it would have to, or would have to be removed, as an old stopped clock doesn’t give the right impression on a new hotel. Which is what this building is now.

Malmaison hotel, 2 Rougier Street, 7 May 2021

In recent years there was a planning application to convert the office block to residential accommodation, but that didn’t happen. It’s now a hotel under the ‘Malmaison’ brand. It was due to open this month, but apparently its opening has been delayed.

This previously very tall building is now a bit taller, with one of those weird additions that seem to be the thing in recent years, of adding height to a building but setting the extra storey back a bit, presumably to make it less visible/intrusive. But part of it is visible from the city walls, and it’s very visible from the Leeman Road area near the railway museum, as pictured on an earlier page.

It’s also quite visible if you’re down the other end of Rougier Street looking back up at it.

Let’s go through the archway and enter the gloomy canyon …

Rougier Street view, 10 May 2021

In the distance there, the archway we’ve just come through, and the Memorial Gardens and triangular park beyond it. They’re all bathed in evening sunlight, but none of it reaches down here, because of the height of the light-blocking buildings, 2 Rougier Street and its more recent neighbour.

I really don’t like the look of the extra storey, but get the impression that many people are looking forward to visiting the ‘sky bar’ up there, when it opens.

Back down at street level, I recently I found an interesting image in an article in the Press, showing a view of Rougier Street from a similar place to the one above, but before the office block in the foreground was built.

Rougier Street, 1982 (from York Press)

I’m used to the way Rougier Street looks, and the scale of that office building, but looking at it afresh, in this photo, I wonder how a building of that scale was permitted in such a sensitive location. It just looks wrong, plonked there, out of keeping with everything around it.

Perhaps it was thought that the railway offices to the left of it had set a precedent for tall buildings in this part of the city. But the contrast between the two and the impact of the large office block is clear.

Since then of course the foreground area, where the low building was, has been filled with another large building, as pictured above.

On the subject of tall buildings, and as we are on Rougier Street, looking at one side of it, maybe it’s time to turn to the other side of it to confront ‘the most shameful and absurd decision any committee has ever made‘ … ?

… or maybe it needs some more thought.

Let’s briefly escape 2021 and run off into 1971. More on that story later.

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Ryedale House, Piccadilly

Returning from some offline time I thought I should peruse the planning applications received by the council in recent weeks. This led me to several for further perusal, but perhaps the most worthy of note at the present time is an application for a change of use for Ryedale House on Piccadilly, from offices to residential:

16/02022/ORC | Proposed change of use from offices to 73 apartments (use class C3) under Class O Part 3 Schedule 2 of Article 3 of The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 2015 | Ryedale House 58 – 60 Piccadilly York (link to relevant documents on the City of York Council website)

I’ve written about this building before, as part of a short series of ‘office block studies‘, when it became obvious that several of these 1960s/70s blocks built for the huge numbers of staff employed by large organisations seemed likely to be gutted and remodeled as residential accommodation, a change of use more suited to 21st century needs.

… although the building occupies an excellent and sustainable location within York City Centre, close to the railway station and local amenities, the building remains vacant. This implies that office uses at Ryedale House are not currently attractive to the market, and therefore its conversion to residential provides a viable opportunity to invest in the long term future of the building in the heart of the City Centre, increasing the vitality of the local area.
(Planning Statement (PDF))

Ryedale House tends to be seen as ugly and a blot on the landscape, because it’s big and it’s modern. But if you see it in bright light from the other side of the river, with blue sky behind it, it’s handsome in its own way, and part of the story of the 20th century development of the city.

Ryedale House from the other side of the Foss, March 2012

Opposite Ryedale House is the Piccadilly Residence development, pictured below earlier this year. It is I think now completed and all its apartments are taken, according to the website. So perhaps there’s enough demand for the 73 apartments proposed in Ryedale House.

From Ryedale House, across Piccadilly

Future developments will presumably fill the length of Piccadilly to its junction with Merchantgate with similarly tall light-blocking buildings. Ryedale House was the first and biggest on this street, but knocking it down wouldn’t improve anything, so probably best to remodel and reuse?

So many people must have worked in Ryedale House. If you have memories of it, or thoughts about the change of use, comments are welcome below.

More information

Background/more info on Ryedale House, my earlier ‘office block study’

Planning application documents, on the City of York Council website

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Aviva building, 2 Rougier St, reminders of old signage, April 2016

While on my way to look at Hudson House earlier this week I noticed this, the subject of today’s ‘April daily photo‘, from the vantage point of the city walls.

It’s a building I’ve written about before, a rather dominant presence at the end of Rougier Street. I took a few quick snapshots of it, noticing what we might call a ‘ghost sign’, revealed by the removal of its most recent signage for Aviva.

When I wrote about it before — inspired by a splendid hand-drawn illustration of it in a 1970s advertisement — I wasn’t sure what to call it. Because it seemed to have changed its name quite often, as the insurance company whose office it was changed its name, following various acquisitions and mergers. So I just called it ‘2 Rougier Street’.

But here, under its most recent plastic signage, it held ghostly reminders of a couple of those changes of name. Zooming in and doing a bit of digital enhancement reveals them:

2 Rougier St, detail: reminders of old signage, April 2016

‘Norwich Union’ is obvious. I thought I could also see a large ‘C’ to the right, and then remembered — wasn’t it CGU? — and some Googling revealed that it was (formed in 1998 from the merger of Commercial Union and General Accident).

When I’ve written about ‘ghost signs’ before it’s been in the sense of old adverts painted on brick walls, the fading kind, often hidden away behind newer advertising billboards, or still faintly visible. This is even more ‘ghostly’, though no paint has been involved here.

The signs, as I recall and as these reminders of them suggest, were plastic lettering. So what we’re seeing now must be the shadow left around them from the dirt accumulated back then.

This is a very congested, traffic-filled corner, with high levels of air pollution, something noted in the planning application documents for its conversion to residential.

These subtle sooty reminders of decades past made me think about how this office too was a major employer in the city, and when I think about the place now, having focused my attention, the name that comes to mind is ‘General Accident’, which must have been the name it had around the time I left school, when many people seemed to get jobs at General Accident.

No sign of that in the sooty shadows, but important to remember these things.

I guess they’ll clean up this important bar-walls-facing frontage, so I’m glad I captured this, if only on my compact camera in a quick passing snapshot.

Further information

‘Aviva’s history in York is really the history of Yorkshire Insurance’ says this fascinating article including many old photographs of York and advertisements from decades past.

There’s more information on heritage.aviva.com, on the Yorkshire Insurance Company Ltd (includes General Accident), and see also CGNU and Norwich Union.

A photo of the building in 2008 with the Norwich Union name

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Hudson House from the city walls, April 2016

Update – the text below was written in 2016. The building has since been demolished and there’s a new development on the site. I’ve written an update: Hudson Quarter (Hudson House site). For all pages on Hudson House see this link.

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I had a walk along the walls yesterday evening to have a proper look at Hudson House. And here it is. Well, a bit of it. It’s quite large. Today’s ‘April daily photo‘.

Stonebow House, over the other side of town, has been the focus of much attention in recent days, following the emergence of plans to revamp the existing building. Meanwhile, plans for this 1960s concrete building have been approved (subject to a section 106 agreement) and no one seems particularly interested. So I thought I’d give it some attention, rather than Stonebow House, which these pages have covered in depth many times already. (We got so deep and involved we even wrote a poem about it.)

So, here we are at Hudson House, between Toft Green and the bar walls. Much of it is to be converted to residential use, keeping some office space, upgraded to ‘Grade A’.

I wrote a fairly lengthy page about this building some time back, one of a series of ‘office block studies‘. It included thoughts on the building from observers in decades past. We also observed that it had ended up rather grubby-looking over the years.

The plans will see it cleaned and its windows replaced. It will be interesting to see the effect of this, what kind of face it presents both to the bar walls and to Toft Green, when it’s all smartened up and people are living in it.

Googling for information on Hudson House led me to places I wouldn’t normally go — pages about finance and assets and shares and the like. I found myself on the London Stock Exchange website, as apparently Hudson House, which I knew in my youth as British Rail offices, is now the major asset of a company called Palace Capital. An article from December 2014 states:

Cushman & Wakefield valued the property at GBP4.3 million when Palace Capital bought it, and the valuation had increased to GBP9.65 million as of September 30 of this year.

(Source)

And presumably valued at even more now, in 2016.

The planning application documents are an interesting read. The Economic Statement, for example, quoting a 2014 viability study, states that ‘a speculative office scheme is unlikely to be viable in current market conditions’. So the proposed massive office blocks at York Central … ? Perhaps there’s an expectation that they’ll be massively desirable and viable by the time they’re built.

The need, of course, is for more housing. The Committee Report prepared for last Thursday’s meeting states:

The applicants are not proposing any affordable housing. The development has been subject to an independent viability assessment and this position has been accepted.

These new apartments will be for rent, not sale. Part of the ever-growing ‘private rented sector’ here in York.

See ‘More information’, below, for background and links to the relevant planning application documents.

This is just one of many conversions of large office blocks to residential use. The work on the former Holgate Villa has been completed recently, Hilary House has been remodeled as Biba House, and over on Piccadilly the United House office block is in the process of being converted to the ‘Piccadilly Residence’. (Across the road from it is Ryedale House, surely another candidate for change of use to residential.) The former Aviva building on the corner of Rougier Street, not far away, is also to be converted to residential use.

More information

See the planning application documents. Of particular interest: (PDF files), the Committee Report, the Heritage Statement, the Design and Access Statement and the Economic Statement.

More information on why so many office blocks are turning into apartments

Property veterans’ young venture Palace Capital has a spring in its step (thisismoney.co.uk)

Update

The building has since been demolished and there’s a new development on the site. I’ve written an update: Hudson Quarter (Hudson House site). For all pages on Hudson House see this link.

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1970s ad for Yorkshire General, with 2 Rougier St in background

Time to catch up on planning applications. Well, some of the more interesting ones. This particular one gives me a chance to include the groovy late 1970s advert above, from one of the old guides to York I picked up a few years back in the closing-down sale at the Barbican Bookshop. The happy-looking couple are in front of the Rougier Street office of Yorkshire General, as it was then. Now Aviva. Let’s just call it 2 Rougier Street.

It’s interesting that this is another of those ‘office to residential’ conversions. Perhaps all the city’s large office blocks dating from the later 20th century will end up being converted to residential use. It’s happened already with Hilary House (now Biba House) and the office block on Holgate Road, and may happen at Hudson House and Ryedale House, and others.

This is the link to the planning application documents, if you’d like to read more or make a comment.

The building in question looms large over Rougier Street, adding to the ‘gloomy canyon‘ effect of that street. But retaining the buildings we’ve already got is usually preferable to knocking them down.

Observers of changes in the city will have noticed that everything built on the Hungate redevelopment site and in the nearby Walmgate area is similarly lofty and light-blocking. It’s unlikely that knocking this building down would bring us anything better.

It looks okay, fifty years or so after it was built. At least where it faces the junction and the city walls. It has a nice clock on the corner. Would that be kept? Would it be kept and keep time, even? I don’t know as I haven’t had time to look at the planning application documents.

Some photos follow of the building from various angles taken at various times in the past ten years. And further information follows, in the links below.

View from the walls towards the Minster, 2005, including 2 Rougier St, next to the railway offices (now Cedar Court Grand)

View from the city walls near Lendal Bridge, looking towards the entrance to Rougier Street (2011)

Golden loveliness on the horizon, framed by the gloomy canyon of Rougier St. 2 Rougier St on the right (2012)

Further information

In 2009, the Press reported on York Civic Trust’s verdict on City of York Council HQ options, one of which, at the time (2009) was the building above. (As we now know, West Offices was chosen.)

June 2015: Aviva looks to sell York office as part of £225 million savings bid

History of the Yorkshire Insurance Company (heritage.aviva.com)

The advertisement at the top of the page is from a late 1970s guide to York. It was printed — as so many local publications were — by a York firm whose name will be familiar to many.

Ben Johnson’s, later Donnelleys, and now no more. The old Ben Johnson’s, in York, is remembered in this rather nice letter in yesterday’s Press: ‘York was very fortunate indeed to have Ben Johnson’s, the home of Europe’s finest printer, in its city’.

Update, 2021

The conversion to residential didn’t happen. The building is now a hotel, due to open in 2021. More on that on this page.

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Hilary House, 15 Sept 2013

From Stonebow House, let’s pop down the road to revisit another 1960s office block. Back in 2013 I wrote about it, then later several other 20th century office blocks in the city, as it became clear how many were empty and apparently redundant as office buildings.

By spring 2014, work had begun to remodel Hilary House into residential accommodation. I wandered past, every now and then, to see how work was progressing.

Hilary House, 6 May 2014

Inside the protective sheeting the building had been stripped right back to its basic structure, just its framework, so the passerby having a nosy through the netting and barriers could see straight through from one side to the other, across what was once a tax office full of people working at desks.

This 1960s building was typical of its period, as noted in the documents accompanying the planning application for its redevelopment:

The external appearance of the current building is typical of that time, reflecting the common use of a prefabricated system of construction which in the case of Hilary House consists of a concrete framework and cladding panels. Horizontal bands of glazing lighten the facade, and are framed by brickwork, possibly a concession to neighbouring buildings. The building which stands today could be seen as a result of the combined effects of current thinking at that time, resulting in a dogmatic approach to the design of buildings. This included a disregard for the use of historical reference in building design, using a palette of materials intrinsic to the design philosophy of the time, irrespective of the buildings context.

— Townscape and Visual Impact Assessment, CJ Dykes, PDP Landscape and Urban Design

It’s always good to see buildings being reused rather than demolished. Or I’ve always thought so. And here in York we’ve seen some interesting and imaginative reusing and remodeling of buildings. Sometimes that’s because they’re listed and historic. This one wasn’t but it was retained anyway. Despite being one of the ‘detractors’ mentioned in council documents and other reports.

And here it is now, in November 2015, viewed from St Saviourgate. Where you might be forgiven for not noticing much of a change. It’s still big, it’s still noticeably modern compared to the handsome old houses of St Saviourgate.

Hilary House (now Biba House) from St Saviourgate, 12 Nov 2015

On closer inspection, it has changed quite a bit. Been refaced/reclad, whatever the term is. Whatever, it looks smarter.

Hilary House (now Biba House), Nov 2015

Round the back, on Aldwark, what was once a rather forlorn and scruffy car park has a new smarter boundary, with railings and gates, and a newly planted tree. The concrete planter has gone. The collection of large wheelie bins once a feature to one side of its rear entrance must have found a new home.

Round the front, it faces the street with a new bit of grass and wood chippings and a small shrub planting near the steps, replacing the empty concrete planter and ‘decorative’ cobbled surface.

The changes outside are subtle, but inside it’s really quite posh, by the sound of it. Recent Press articles and the brochure for the building — now called ‘Biba House’ — advertised its grandeur. You can view those via the links below, in ‘Further information’.

The top floor in particular has impressive views, shown in the publicity for the development. And as one comment on the Press website pointed out, the place must be even bigger than we thought it was, as according to the images in the brochure, one of the windows looks out towards the east end of the Minster, while another is shown to look out onto the west end … (provoking a very clever pun on abode/Adobe from another reader).

Keen-eyed locals notice surprising Minster view (Press comments, 22 Sept 2015)

Creative representations aside, it’s interesting to see what can be done with a redundant 1960s office block. Similar things are happening elsewhere, with other office buildings. Reuse of existing structures seems sensible and more sustainable. Far better than demolition, surely, wherever possible?

If you’d like to remember the old Hilary House and its architectural details, a small gallery of images follows. If you’re more interested in its recent remodeling, see the links, below.

Concrete planter and cobbles at the front of Hilary House, May 2014

More information

Former tax office transformed (Press, Feb 2015)

Flats in Marlborough Wharf and Biba House set to fetch more than £1m each (Press, 22 September 2015)

Biba House brochure (PDF) — see p55 for the surprising and unlikely view mentioned above, of the Minster’s other end

Planning application documents: the Townscape and Visual Impact Assessment (PDF) (quoted above)

For more photos of the interior see www.christineyorath.com/projects/biba-house-york/

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This website, and the page you’ve just read, was made by Lisa @YorkStories. Creating and sustaining this independently produced and ad-free record of York and its changes continues to be a labour of love, and seems more important as the pace of change quickens. If you enjoy it, and value my work, please support this site.

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