54 Gillygate on Google Street View, 2018 …

It’s 54 Gillygate now, but it used to be a pub. For a long time. With many changes of name. When its years as a pub came to an end, and planning applications were submitted, there were concerns that the plans were a bit too Las Vegas:

Comment on a planning application for 54 Gillygate, some years ago

What we’ve actually got, as pictured as I dashed past earlier this month, is a kitchen showroom:

54 Gillygate in 2019: no Las Vegas here

Seven years ago, December 2012, it was the Pink Pony:

Pink Pony, 54 Gillygate, Dec 2012

… and before that, the Bay Horse, Gillys … Stereo, Cert 18 … (have I missed any?) and towards the end of it being a drinking establishment, the Fleeting Arms and then Monroes?

But whatever name it had when it was a pub, it’s clearly now, in 2019, a shop. Which we could see as a sign of confidence in the future of Gillygate as a thriving retail environment, perhaps.

And those of us who have memories of 54 Gillygate under its many different names when it was a pub and meeting place … just remember the good times. Everything changes …

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Post Office Club, Marygate

As the local press reported a while back, there’s a planning application to convert the Post Office social club on Marygate to residential accommodation.

17/02418/FUL | Conversion of social club and flat to 2no. residential dwellings to include internal and external alterations and extension to rear following part demolition of existing rear extension | York Post Office Employees Social Club 26 Marygate York YO30 7BH

A recent perusal of planning applications submitted towards the end of last year brought to my attention a couple of other planning applications nearby, which seem to have a connection, so I thought I’d mention them together.

First up then, the club closing, and the proposed conversion to residential accommodation. It’s one of those places that has been there for decades, well-known to locals, but clearly not enough of us used it to keep it open. A similar story to many other clubs.

As is usually the case, there’s interesting historical information to be found in the documents submitted as part of the application, in the heritage, design and access report (PDF). The report also includes photos of the interior, which is looking rather shabby on the second floor, uninhabited for some years apparently.

The conversion to club premises meant that on the ground floor ‘the historic footprint is completely lost’. The proposal is to divide the building into two houses, ‘retaining as much of the existing original structure and fabric as possible’, and to ‘reinstate the room layout of the original building and enhance its historic character’.

Next door is the Minster Inn. Fourteen years ago in January 2004, on my first ‘York Walk’ with my camera, I took a photo of both the pub and the club and the light shining up Marygate late in the afternoon.

Marygate: Minster Inn and Post Office Social Club, 8 Jan 2004

The scene looked similar (though not as sunny) on my recent afternoon wander down here.

Marygate: Minster Inn and Post Office Social Club, 12 Jan 2018

Subtle changes in the signage, modernised, with the Minster Inn appearing to be more focused on food than it was, following a general trend.

The title of this page refers to a pub, but this wasn’t the pub I was aiming for. We’re heading off down to the bottom of Marygate.

Bay Horse, Marygate

Bay Horse, Marygate, January 2018

A comment on an earlier page about this pub alerted me to a planning application submitted in recent months:

17/01402/LBC | Bay Horse 68 Marygate York YO30 7BH

These plans, had they been approved, would have resulted in ‘internal alterations to include relocating service bar at ground floor, relocation of kitchen to first floor and subdivision of first floor function room to accommodate new toilets, and external alterations to include single storey extension to rear forming beer cellar and bin store’.

Signs in the window say it’s closed for refurbishment. But the proposed refurbishment – that planning application linked to above – was refused.

I remember a period of closure some years back and previous applications to convert it to residential use. The record of that is on the council’s planning portal. In 2010 there was an application to convert the ground floor to office use and the upper floor to residential (07/01053/LBC). That application was approved, but the work proposed didn’t take place, and the permission long since expired. Previous to that there was an application in 2005 (05/02385/FUL) to convert it to 8 apartments, and an earlier 2004 application for 10 apartments (04/03594/FUL) – both of those were withdrawn.

So what now for the Bay Horse? According to the comment left on my earlier page about this building plans will now be submitted to convert it to residential use (again) as the pub refurbishment plans were refused.

Dividing it into apartments would also spoil its character, but I suspect that’s what will end up happening, particularly as a previous permission was given for a change of use.

Bay Horse, Marygate, exterior detail

Perhaps its historic interior could be better preserved if one wealthy buyer bought the whole thing.

Clearly there is a demand for residential property in this particularly attractive location close to the river and the Museum Gardens.

Which leads us on to …

The old boathouse

Old boathouse, near Scarborough Bridge, Jan 2018

From the club and pub on Marygate we go to the bottom of the street, to Marygate Landing on the riverside, turn right and walk a short way along the riverbank, under Scarborough Bridge, past a row of 20th century semi-detached houses, to where the buildings end to open up to school playing fields and the open space of the ings. The last building here, at the end of the row of houses, is an old boathouse.

Just a little functional building, unused for some time, but I’m familiar with it, having passed it many times.

The boathouse is to be demolished, a new house built in its place.

17/02922/DMNOT | Demolition of Boathouse | Archbishop Holgate Boathouse Sycamore Terrace York

It was on the market a while back, and according to the estate agent, the site represents:

A once in a lifetime opportunity to acquire one of the last remaining potential development sites fronting the River Ouse and within the heart of the historic city of York

There’s a PDF with further particulars, including sketches of ideas for potential buildings on the site once it’s cleared. Thankfully the planned house (planning application 17/02717/FUL) doesn’t look like the rather boxy suggestions in that document. It’s a sensitive site here, where the houses stop and the riverside opens out to flat ings land.

The old boat house. Side view, from the nearby floodbank, May 2017

There are quite a few comments in support of the planning application for the new house on this site, from neighbours mentioning anti-social behaviour around the old boathouse.

What do we know about the old boathouse? The planning portal info calls it ‘Archbishop Holgate Boathouse, Sycamore Terrace York’, presumably referring to Archbishop Holgate’s school. The sale particulars give its address as Almery Terrace instead, and according to this information it was formerly the boat house for York City Rowing Club. A book I have, published in 1989, mentions it in passing as York Canoe Club. Many different clubs and organisations using it over the years, it seems.

It’s not architecturally handsome, but it is linked with the city’s sporting heritage, with its relationship to the river Ouse, and like all buildings it will have its stories.

And, like other buildings round here, the club and the pub, it’s no longer a place visited and used by many individuals and groups getting together for social/cultural/sporting events. Instead its site is seen as perfect for residential development, for a new (and presumably very expensive) house.

So many people keen to live in York, and clearly some of them wealthy enough to afford desirable properties close to the city centre, hence the residential conversions.

But I wonder if our local areas might become rather dull if entirely residential in character. Places like the club, the pub, and this little old boathouse, have formed part of the interesting variety of our local areas, in decades past.

. . . . .

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Map

Google map showing locations of buildings mentioned above.

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Memorial Gardens

At the weekend I had a wander in spring sunshine, beginning at the Memorial Gardens. At first glance it looks much as it did before, but I called by here as I’d read that some of the flowerbeds had been turfed over. Not perhaps that interesting in itself, but the information came from the impressively-titled ‘Update on Implementation of Recommendations from Previously Completed Goose Management Scrutiny Review’ (item 6 at this recent meeting).

Back in summer 2015 I wrote about the tatty and apparently untended ‘display’ here in this park, which seemed like a waste of money and resources. I wondered if it might be more sensible to turf over the flowerbeds instead. Nice to see that this has occurred. There’s nothing wrong with the large area of grass, it seems appropriate to me, as it’s a memorial garden for quiet reflection, and the monument in the centre is the focus of that attention.

Apparently evergreen shrubs may be planted this spring. I hope they’re planting them round the edges somewhere and not going to waste yet more of the city’s money and resources by taking up the turf recently laid.

Private businesses in the city like the nearby hotel by the station provide fabulous floral displays, so perhaps the council would be better leaving such things up to them. The council seems to be withdrawing from provision of many far more important things, so council tax payers might question investment in flowers.

The demise of the dahlias here in the gardens seems to have been blamed on the geese. The goose management strategy mentioned above referred to a couple of measures put in place here, including the installation of a gate, and also notes ‘all bedding removed’. Not, as it first seemed, a reference to goose roosts, but to the bedding plants put in the flowerbeds.

Gate or no gate, bedding or no bedding, the geese don’t care. Look at these two, happily chomping away on the new grass. The outline of the old flowerbeds is visible in the turf and its more vivid shade of green.

Geese in Memorial Gardens, March 2017

Personally I like seeing the geese, and I know I’m not alone in that. We may return to the issue of goose management another time. For now, a read of this PDF is recommended, for an insight into the time and money that has been/could be spent on trying to control geese numbers. And here’s something I wrote when first hearing of the goose scrutinising.

Let’s fly over to the nearby Tanner’s Moat, just over the other side of the bar walls. At the bottom there’s Wellington Row, and this rather fine building:

‘Hub Station’ building, Wellington Row

It was built as an electricity sub-station, but you wouldn’t know it. It’s listed. It was most recently used as the ‘Hub Station’, a base for the Bike Rescue Project. I wrote about it some years back. That project closed, sadly. There’s now a planning application submitted by the Environment Agency to use it as a public drop-in centre/exhibition space for information on flood defences in York:

17/00527/FUL | Change of use from community bike shop/workshop to public drop in centre/exhibition space with ancillary office accommodation | The Hub Station Wellington Row York YO1 6BE

This wouldn’t alter the exterior and seems to involve little change to the interior. It would be good to see the place back in use, and again accessible to the public.

Just along from that we come to North Street Gardens, where a memorial to John Snow has recently been completed. I wrote about the planning application for the memorial in November 2016.

Nicely done.

John Snow memorial, North Street gardens

Though the stone base for the pump has covered some of the grass in this area most of it remains, and seemed to be appreciated by a blackbird pecking for worms.

From here, let’s run off up to Micklegate. I haven’t been for a while, but I read recently that the ‘gentrification’ effect is becoming more noticeable. In May 2016 I wrote about the old ‘Micklegate Run’ and the changes here. Time for a quick revisit.

Nags Head, Micklegate, pub sign

Much of it looked much the same as last time I was up this way, but then I saw this handsome frontage:

Partisan, 112 Micklegate

— and wondered why I’d never noticed it before. That beautiful bluey-green glazed brick, isn’t it splendid?

It must have been covered up before, I deduced. And it seems that was the case. Google Street View helpfully confirmed my suspicion. The bricks were painted before, and this image captures their uncovering:

112 Micklegate, summer 2016 (from Google Street View)

Quite an improvement there then. And even a bit of a ‘ghost sign’ there, in the woodwork above the window, on the Partisan frontage pictured above. (More on ghost signs on this link.)

A bit further up the street, another place that has opened since I was up here last:

Brewdog, 130-134 Micklegate

I wrote about the licensing application sign in its then empty windows last year. It’s clearly now open, though its frontage looks a bit unfinished. We were trying to work out if it’s supposed to look like that. Maybe aiming for a punk kind of look, or something.

Quite a contrast to Partisan. But then Micklegate always has been a street of interesting contrasts, and I’m glad it still is.

At the top, of course, we reach Micklegate Bar and the walls. I was aiming for a particular building on nearby Toft Green. The wall walk angle on it seemed particularly alluring on this sunny afternoon, so up the steps we go to meet the treetops — well, the tree sides — and the buds about to open:

About to open its buds: tree by the bar walls

I was intending to write about a new planning application for Hudson House for this week’s page, but got distracted by all these other things on the way. So instead I’ll leave you with the delightfully distracting daffs I looked down on from the walls by the station. Happy springtime everyone.

Daffodils in bloom on the walls by the station

I’m at present adding a page a week to yorkstories.co.uk, publishing on Thursdays. If you’d like notifications of new additions you can join the mailing list or follow me on Twitter.

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Licensing application document in Micklegate window, reflecting The Priory pub opposite, April 2016

Today’s photo is of a licensing application document in a window on Micklegate. The window also reflects The Priory, a pub on the opposite side of the road, near the entrance to Priory Street.

When I started these pages site notices about planning applications seemed to be stuck up on lamp posts and the like everywhere I walked. There are still a lot of those around of course, but they seem to have been joined in recent years by an increasing number of documents relating to licensing applications, as more pubs, bars and restaurants open.

This one’s in the window of a large empty shop near the top of Micklegate, which is soon to be a Brewdog bar. I probably wouldn’t have given any thought to this, or stopped to take this photo, if it wasn’t for the recent Press coverage of a court battle over the licensing application.

Micklegate is an interesting street. Perhaps now a place where different ‘cultures’ are clashing. There’s clearly a movement to change the feel of the street, to promote it as a shopping street and community of businesses, like Fossgate perhaps. To me, and other people of my age and older, it has always had the word ‘run’ attached to it – as in ‘Micklegate run’, meaning it was a magnet for people out on a pub crawl who went down the street from one pub to another. Not something I’ve ever done myself. I remember tending to avoid it at ‘chucking out time’ (often accompanied by chucking-up time) on weekend evenings.

Back then, of course, we tended to be chucked out of the pubs not long after eleven. Drinking up time was announced with a shout from behind the bar and, as I recall, a bell ringing (or was that just some pubs). As I’m writing I’m suddenly recalling, almost hearing it again, the preceding ‘Last orders at the bar, ladies and gentlemen, please’.

But it’s different now, isn’t it. That 2003 Licensing Act referred to in the official notice on the window changed the rules on opening hours and made them more flexible. Apparently it came into effect in November 2005. So we’ve had just over a decade of this new relaxed ‘open all hours’ approach in our licensed premises.

So many things could be said. Perhaps this isn’t the place to attempt a lengthy discussion of what tends to be called ‘the drinking culture’. But I have to mention that I keep thinking of the Esher report, and its promotion of the idea that more people should be living in the city centre, within the walls, and how this has been encouraged, with many new apartment blocks and more people living in flats above shops. But we only need to read the observations of Pamela Ward in that report, where she describes the cultural life of the city, to realise that city centre living in the age of the 11pm ‘last orders’ would be a very different thing to city centre living now.

And in the Micklegate area … it’s hard to see that it will ever be a quiet kind of street, though there are obvious moves towards trying to make it more ‘gentrified’, like the rest of the city centre. But it’s still the main gateway in from the racecourse, the first street of pubs within the walls that the racegoers arrive in, coming up that ancient straightish road from the Knavesmire. And it’s near the station, and it has its reputation, and it has always had a lot of pubs, and that’s part of its identity.

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The Junction pub, Leeman Rd, 16 April 2006

I’m pleased to have found this photo, one quick snapshot taken on a wander through the Leeman Road area on 16 April 2006, part of a much longer walk on a sunny Easter Sunday, one of my old ‘Wanderings’ pages.

When I heard, a couple of years back, that the Junction pub was to be demolished, I wanted to get up there and get a photo or two, but there were other things going on at the time, more important to me. I didn’t remember then that I already had this image of the place from years back. Just the one, but it will do.

And looking at it again ten years on almost to the day has led me to more thought and more reading/research/discoveries, as has been the case with many of these ‘April daily photos‘.

Looking at the photo itself, it’s obvious that the pub isn’t exactly surrounded by a community of houses, and that it appears a bit stranded, in the middle of the industrial district of Leeman Road. Behind it are a couple of short streets of small terraced houses. Newer residential buildings are a little further along, but otherwise it’s just old industrial land, the edge of what we’re now calling ‘York Central’, where many demolitions have taken place. A place awaiting a new shape. So a pub here would struggle, you could say.

The pub’s advertising sign on the verge draws attention to the function room. I wonder how many people went to a function at the Junction.

I know that many people went to gigs here. I vaguely remember going to one myself, though I can’t remember who it was or when it was. But I’ve been told that sometime in recent years (2010-2012ish) the UK Subs and the Angelic Upstarts played here, the latter at a Punk All-Dayer type of event. Earlier than that, a pub review site mentions gigs here in 2005.

Nostalgia is one thing. Nice to have a bit of reminiscing. But these days, increasingly, it’s less about that for me, more about the reasons things change, the reasons some places survive and others don’t, why some places are sustained and campaigned for, while others just get knocked down. Relevant to York and to everywhere else too.

The documents for the planning application are enlightening/thought-provoking, as is so often the case, but particularly so in this case. My impression was that the closure and demolition of this pub happened surprisingly quickly. And the info I’ve been reading backs that up. My photo is from a whole ten years ago, but the pub closed relatively recently. The report to committee for the planning application (13/03597/FUL) says:

The Junction public house closed in February 2013 and was placed on the market in March 2013 by Barry Crux & Company. No interest arose in taking over the property as a public house and it was sold at auction in September 2013. It can be seen that the property was satisfactorily advertised to allow for it to be taken over and run as its public house. In addition it is considered that alternative community facilities of the same nature are present within easy walking distance either in The Leeman Road area or within the City Centre. It is therefore considered that the loss of the communal facility is acceptable.

— source (PDF)

Incredibly quick turnaround on this one, with a planning application submitted and validated in mid November 2013, recommended for approval, and decided 27 Mar 2014.

So there are now houses on the site where the pub used to be. They’ve been designed to blend in with the existing housing behind. So that’s good, isn’t it.

Except … well, other things could be said, but perhaps too much for what was supposed to be a shortish page of readable length. It’s mainly about the value of land, isn’t it.

If you want to compare then and now, here’s a link to the Google Street View image of the new housing on the site. And it’s one of those with that rather nice shift between older Street View and new, so if you select to move forward from where I’ve placed you with that link you’ll see the pub magically reappearing momentarily, on an older Street View.  (Served up at the time of writing, possibly changed by the time you read this.)

Comments welcome, as always. If you have fond memories of the Junction, comments to make on pub closures in general …

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I’d been wondering why nothing had happened yet to turn the Corner House pub into a Tesco store, and the Press recently provided the answer: because Tesco are no longer interested in it. This was followed by the interesting suggestion that the Burton Lane WMC might move into it, an idea its members then voted against.

So it seems it may remain empty for a while yet, with those rather grim metal shutters across its windows, and of course the inevitable graffiti tags.

Any chance of it re-opening as a pub? Anyone have any information on this? If not, perhaps the Co-op would be interested. I’d be interested in a Co-op food store, as we don’t have one in this part of town.

If it’s going to sit there empty for months/years, could it perhaps have its lower half covered with wooden boards, and be designated a temporary ‘legal graffiti wall’? Perhaps one of the many skilled graffiti artists could decorate it with something meaningful/colourful. It’s not exactly enhancing the street scene as it is.

Perhaps the local community is already working on ideas for its reuse. Perhaps our new Labour councillors in Clifton are on the case. Comments and information welcome, as always.

Previous pages on the Corner House can be found on this link.

Not far away is Groves Chapel, which was supposed to be becoming a Sainsbury’s store. Nothing much happening on that front as far as I can tell. No planning application yet, and it still has ‘under offer’ on its for sale sign. Perhaps Sainsbury’s have changed their mind too? More on Groves Chapel on this link.

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