As previously mentioned, a highlight of the plaques walk was the investigation of an old abandoned public toilet. No, really, it was. Which makes the walk sound a bit rubbish. That’s not what I mean at all. It was so interesting I’m revisiting it.

Our small plaque-bearing party headed off from Spurriergate towards what in recent times has been known as one of the snickelways, but which we used to call an alley or a lane. Church Lane curves round towards Low Ousegate, and at its bend is a grubby old alley leading straight down to the river. Paul was about to place on a wall near this corner a plaque referring to some toilets which used to be near here.

‘The toilets were down there!’ I declared, confidently, pointing down the grubby alleyway. ‘Down at the bottom, near the river!’ And we all set off down the grubby alleyway.

Well, dear readers, I was wrong. Or rather, I was partly right and partly wrong.

In the interests of factual accuracy, because we care about that on this site, and challenge myths, clarification is needed, so let’s recreate last Saturday’s wander. As I did a few days later when revisiting to take some of these photos.

A stroll down Fish Landing Lane

The alley is full of bins and signs about where bins shouldn’t go.

Clearly there’s an issue with badly placed bins. This sign is a few metres along from the first one.

It used to be called Fish Landing Lane. No fish around here now, but clearly there’s some wildlife, as indicated by a container full of rat poison, placed prominently on a wall.

At the bottom there are steps, concrete steps, up to a concrete riverside walkway, just a short stretch, past two shop units, then you’re at Ouse Bridge. The walkway also leads to an entrance to Yates’s.

Under the concrete steps there used to be public toilets. They’re still there, but haven’t been used for years, except by pigeons. We discussed their previous life — Richard remembered them too.

Paul placed the plaque on the wall and and we took photos.

We all headed back up the alley, away from the pigeon poo and graffiti, back to Coney Street, glad to have seen a bit of authentic ‘old York’.

I was pleased I’d made a contribution, my only contribution, as I hadn’t made a plaque, or turned up early enough for the discussion beforehand, or made sandwiches, or done anything else useful at all. But at least I knew the place to put the plaque … 
… but I was wrong.

The 1950s toilet facilities

Later on, back at home, I thought about the fact that the plaque marked a meeting in the 1950s, and that my memory of those toilets at the bottom of the lane was decades later, the 1980s. Where we girls used to check our make up and if necessary reapply our eyeliner before heading into town.

Would those toilets have been there in the 1950s? Were they old enough? It bothered me.

I emailed Stephen, as I knew he lived in York in the 50s, and I thought he might be able to help. As indeed he did. Thank you Stephen.

He said he remembered toilet facilities nearer the bend of Church Lane, in or near what is now Yates’s beer garden.

After much searching, I found ‘urinal’ marked on the 1891 town plan.

The toilet/urinal may have been rebuilt in the intervening decades, and perhaps shifted position slightly, but it was still at this junction of the alleyways behind the church in the 1950s. Stephen said: ‘It was an old fashioned affair, adorned with those old type reddish brown tiles, and not a place a young lass would check on her make up I’m sure!’

At this corner where the narrow alleys met setts were set in various patterns and directions with cart tracks between, in the 19th century and perhaps reordered since.

I remembered too a book by Hugh Murray on the history of public toilets in York. It has the fab title Where to Go in York. I don’t have it, but found the library did. Clifton Library had a copy, even more convenient. But it was Sunday, and Clifton Library wasn’t open. I spent Sunday in eager anticipation of finding out the answer to all my public-toilet-related queries, and on Monday afternoon jumped on my bike and cycled really fast up to the library — and even faster back again, as it was about to rain heavily — and got back with Hugh Murray’s book tucked in my rucksack.

And what an interesting read it is.

Church Lane’s first urinal was provided in 1857. Urinals in those days tended to be roofless. The goings-on therein were apparently clearly visible from the upper floors of nearby buildings. Hugh Murray’s book records complaints being made by the occupants of these properties in 1872. The solution was to put a roof on the urinals, at a cost of £20.

The proximity of the urinal to the back of shops in Spurriergate resulted in later complaints too, in 1957, by the owners of a handbag shop overlooking it. It wasn’t just a toilet facility, but a meeting place. See Paul Furness’s article in York Mix (Location 4) for more information.

The replacement facilities

Loos near the Ouse, 15 August 2004. Can be enlarged.

In 1966 new toilets for men and women opened in a purpose-built facility at the bottom of the alley, near the river. And those, of course, are the ones I remember. And where we placed the plaque. Which, as we now know, should be on the corner near Yates’s.

They were still in use in around 1983, closed at some point since. (Perhaps closed in 1987 or thereabouts. Hugh Murray’s book says the facility was rented on a 21 year lease.) This photo was taken in August 2004, from Ouse Bridge, on one of my ‘York Walks’ of that year.

Above the toilets, accessed from this concrete walkway, was a record shop I remember visiting a lot. I may have misremembered, but as I recall it was called ‘Songs and Stories’. But that’s a story for another time. After a bit more about toilets.

Actually there are many stories spinning off from this grubby alley, and I’d like to share them, but I’m no longer able to give everything away for free so I’ll be trying to sell them to you later instead. More on that story later too.

For now, let’s escape this pigeon-poo-plastered place, and head off elsewhere. To another toilet. Mind how you go though, as we pass yet another warning sign, near the back of Yates’s.

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Blue Bell, Fossgate: temporary handmade plaque records that the city’s football club was founded here in 1922

As previously mentioned, Saturday was ‘Write Your Own Plaque’ day, part of the Living with History project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Below is a selection of the plaques placed on a wander through York. Paul Furness gave us the background to many of the plaques, and these stories are also included in this article in York Mix — highly recommended.

It was a fascinating and enjoyable wander. We had to brave rain showers and even hailstones at one point, so I hope the plaques survived that. (They’re only temporary, made from laminated paper and stuck on with tape.)

A highlight of the walk was our investigation of a forgotten toilet off Church Lane … More on that story later.

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There are many commemorative plaques in York. This is a personal favourite, not because of the person whose life it commemorates — who, I have to confess, I know nothing about — but because it’s a handsome thing on an equally handsome stone gatepost in the generally beautiful Minster Yard area.

I’ve written before about other plaques and memorials. Paul Woosey’s bench, and the plaque to John Woolman, and the plaque marking the birthplace of W H Auden (often referred to as a ‘York poet’ — did he ever write anything about York?).

There’s a very interesting event taking place this Saturday, encouraging us to make our own plaques. I’ve often thought, prompted by ponderings on the Auden plaque, that it would be brilliant to do something like this, and now, hurrah, York’s Alternative History/Living with History have organised this event.

Making our own plaques to mark our own significant places is a way of reclaiming the city many of us feel we have lost. And reclaiming it, hanging on to its real history, is more important than ever, in the face of the increasing focus on the city’s visitors and the accompanying uninspiring language of endless ‘offers’ — ‘visitor offer’, ‘cultural offer’, ‘retail offer’— and most recently and most hideously its ‘railway offer’ (once known as its ‘railway industry’).

I’m sorry I didn’t mention this event much earlier, as until 6 May we were able to send by email suggestions for a plaque to put in a particular place. The deadline for that has gone. I know from the emails I’ve received over the last decade that particular places are remembered by many readers of this website who no longer live in York. I remember receiving beautiful and poetic words about Acomb, and Hob Moor, and the Knavesmire, and various schools, and perhaps a plaque should go up on the remnants of the wall once dividing ‘private’ and ‘council’ residential areas.

If you’re unable to get to the event on Saturday, and a particular place is special to you and you can picture the plaque you’d have made if you could, add a comment below?

More information about the event, 10th May

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‘By the tree’ used to be ‘a great place to meet mates’, as this plaque records. It’s in memory of someone called Paul Woosey, whose nickname was Wooz. He was born in 1976 and died in 2007. I didn’t know him. I just know from this plaque that he used to meet his mates by the tree.

I assume his friends and family had this plaque put here.

I went into town earlier and sat for a while on his bench to have a think before coming home to write this page.

You may be wondering where this plaque is, might not have noticed it. It’s in the square we all love so much, King’s Square — on the bench by the tree nearest to the junction with Newgate and the Shambles.

The plaque’s not that easy to spot, as like the rest of the square it’s really dirty. I didn’t see it until relatively recently. So I wouldn’t blame anyone for not noticing.

Unless, that is, they were going round, as part of the ‘Reinvigorate York’ team, doing an audit of the existing features and a carefully considered redesign of the area, which was supposed to be retaining things of value, and was supposed to be for residents as well as visitors. Then I would expect them not only to have noticed it, but to have gone out of their way to contact the family or friends of the deceased, if they were planning to remove and replace the benches, which they are.

The repaving work is just part of the ‘Reinvigorate York’ scheme. The rest of it involves removing ‘clutter’ and turning King’s Square into a ‘world class space’. It also involves replacing benches with benches of a standard type. It also apparently involves chucking plaques placed in memory of former York residents into a skip? Or perhaps recycling the metal? Or perhaps removing them and losing them? What were they planning to do exactly? I was curious.

So, some months after first thinking about this, and in response to the current concerns over the ‘reinvigoration’ of this place, I emailed today to ask. The relevant council team/department is apparently unaware of this plaque.

Which tells me all I need to know about Reinvigorate York, if I didn’t know already. For residents? No it isn’t. Respecting this ‘special and unique place’? No it isn’t.

Like I said, I didn’t know Paul Woosey, I know nothing about this plaque apart from what it tells me. What it tells me is part of what makes this ‘special and unique place’ special and unique.

So under ‘Reinvigorate York’, residents’ money is to be used to erase the traces/markers of recent residents and their special and unique connections?

Not my idea of respecting and valuing a sense of place.

It’s just small and indistinct, this plaque, it’s a marker of the life of one ordinary resident, whose life I could find no other record of in online records (apart from the official birth and death records) because he wasn’t famous. So he doesn’t have a statue, or a memorial in the Minster, or any of the other markers of greatness. He was I guess just an ordinary person like me and like most York residents.

He has a plaque on a bench in King’s Square. Which no one involved in ‘Reinvigorate York’ cares about.

Who was Paul Woosey? As the ‘reinvigoration’ is about to remove the marker of his life his friends might remember him by in that particular place, I hope that someone who knew him or who knows more about that plaque will claim a seat here, in the virtual sense, via the comments box below, and tell us about Paul Woosey.

You can of course also use the comments box to make more general comments (as long as we all shift along the bench if Paul’s friends come along … But it’s an imaginary bench here in the virtual world, so it can extend for as long as we want it to).

. . . . .

I can also be contacted via email.

Elsewhere on this site

First mentioned in June 2013: Benches in King’s Square. The quote about the square being a ‘special and unique place’ is part of the council’s response to a query regarding the Sound Effect bench, also marked with a plaque.

Update

We saved the bench, for now at least. It’s still in the square after the ‘Phase 1′ work. I’m hoping ‘Phase 2′, if it really is about acknowledging the special and unique aspects of place, will involve not only keeping the plaque but perhaps popping in to the Barnitts shop across the square to buy a tin of Brasso to clean it up a bit.

The post Who was Paul Woosey? appeared first on York Stories.

In memory of
Paul Woosey (Wooz)
5-5-76 — 10-04-07
“By the tree”
A great place to meet mates

King’s Square isn’t somewhere I sit, but somewhere I pass by, pass through, on the way to Barnitts or Tullivers. There are usually people sitting on the benches. Which is perhaps why I’d never really noticed these small plaques.

I went to King’s Square to look for the plaque placed by Sound Effect Records, after reading about it in the consultation documents on the planned changes. I looked at the other benches to see if there were other plaques, noticed the memorial to ‘Wooz’.

And then of course there’s a plaque to mark the planting of the mulberry tree, which is to be removed from King’s Square for aesthetic reasons.

The evening I took these the square was empty – a rare thing. So I sat awhile by the mulberry tree, in this triangle of a ’square’, with its triangle of brass plaques.

There’s little opportunity to get ‘a sense of place’ in all the bustle and noise. You have to sit quietly.

I had what I’d like to call some kind of epiphany, if that didn’t look so daft. I got it, at last, what this square is. It’s a place that holds things. Like a church does. Like the church once in the centre of it did. Or rather, like a house. It reminded me of a house with family photos on the mantelpiece.

I was open-minded about the planned changes to this square. Into that open mind came the sudden conviction that the ‘reinvigoration’ will be an expensive and destructive mistake.

From the consultation responses:

Officer response:

Right. It is a special and unique place. Already. Because of these things added by people who cared. The council cannot impose ’specialness’. In fact they’re about to destroy it.

Maybe the new benches planned will have a plaque saying ‘This plaque was placed by City of York Council in 2013 in memory of the plaque for Paul Woosey, the plaque placed by Sound Effect Records, and the mulberry tree planted by Joyce Douglas.’

No one I’ve spoken to wants this square ‘reinvigorated’.

More later.

Update, 2014

The plans for the square have been modified since the above was written. The mulberry tree is to be retained, and Paul Woosey’s plaque will be placed on a new bench.

Elsewhere on the web

King’s Square, consultation responses (PDF)

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I’ve wondered many times why we make so much of a person’s birthplace. Where we’re born is, after all, something we have absolutely no say in. Worth a plaque perhaps, for ardent fans of the individual’s work. But I never understood why it was seen by some as a case of shameful neglect when York didn’t manage to make more of the centenary of the birth of W H Auden, in 2007.

Auden was here for about a year, for the first year of his life, when it can be assumed he wrote no poetry. His family then moved to Birmingham.

His father, George A Auden, edited A Handbook to York and District, published in 1906. This contribution to the city is more deserving of recognition, I’d suggest, than anything young Wystan was capable of doing while living here.

The book includes mention of places of interest in the Bootham and Marygate area. This house, Littlegarth, being one of them. It’s not far away from the Auden house, round a couple of corners, down Marygate and into Marygate Lane. It is marked by another bronze plaque, marking a life well-lived, at its end.
More on John Woolman

Links etc

An article in the York Press at the time of the Auden centenary quoted Andrew Motion, who suggested that York should be marking the event in a ‘grateful’ way. I really can’t see why York owes any gratitude to Auden, but if you can explain this remark, please feel free to comment.
Photo of Auden plaque: Summonedbyfells on flickr.com.

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