August 2011

A rare survival on a city centre site

These rather dilapidated buildings would have been bulldozed if the plans for the ‘big wheel‘ had gone ahead, and have won only a temporary reprieve. There are plans to landscape the area and remove them, possibly as early as autumn 2011.

The earlier planning application called them ‘hutments’ (a term used for military-related encampments). They date from the Second World War, and look like other buildings from that period. In themselves they’re not architecturally impressive. What’s unusual about them is their location and their original purpose. What’s worrying is that they may be demolished when only a few people have any idea of their history. Most people don’t know we’ve got a former Second World War RCAF hostel behind the art gallery.

These ‘hutments’ have managed to survive in a quiet corner in our city centre for almost 70 years. They’ve had a variety of uses since their hurried construction, but were originally a service hostel or ‘leave club’ for the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Canadian bomber crews served at several local airfields, most now crumbling away into the landscape, including East Moor (near Sutton on the Forest) and Tholthorpe.

A letter sent to the Yorkshire Air Museum, with accompanying photographs, records that this service hostel/leave club was used by members of the RCAF when returning from leave, or if they’d missed the last bus or train, or were changing postings, or had a few days spare before they were due on base.

The buildings are seen by most as an eyesore, to be cleared as soon as possible. To others they’re an authentic link to our wartime history and should be preserved, at least in part. A report submitted among the supporting documents with the planning application called them a ‘a rare and interesting survival within an urban context’. Because of this, there’s a ‘recording exercise’ taking place before they’re demolished. This is intended as some kind of compensation to the future generations, or indeed members of the present generations, who might have been interested in this heritage asset we’re about to clear out of the way, so they can see photos of it when it’s gone, rather than looking around it while it’s here.

They’re not beautiful, they’re functional. Or they were, before a lack of maintenance left them in this dilapidated state. In themselves they have no architectural merit. But it would appear that they are the only surviving purpose-built service hostel/leave club dating from World War Two still in existence in a city centre location. If you know of others, please let me know.

References on urban exploration forums and a recent letter to the local paper show there’s some confusion regarding what the buildings were used for, and who used them. Not surprising really. Their history hasn’t been advertised. Which is why I’ve included so much about them on this website.

This area is destined to be cleared, to become part of the ‘Cultural Quarter’. The current structures are clearly a bit too gritty, grubby and authentic to be ‘cultural’. So instead this is to be another garden area (which could equally well be sited on that other underused area just north of the abbey remains).

Here’s a bit of real history, right in our backyard, and it’s seen as having little value. Close by are St Mary’s Tower, damaged during an earlier conflict, and the grounds where besiegers and besieged fought.

So, in this small corner of York are the visible remains of the two major conflicts that have affected this city in recent centuries. One has no marker since the plaque on St Mary’s Tower fell off. The other is represented by this surviving structure that York Museums Trust want to clear away without most of us having the chance to see it, never mind understand it.

Location

More

History of the hutments – notes on the wartime and post-war use of these buildings

And also – Marygate Centre – notes/dates re the use of the buildings for adult education, post-war

If you’re looking for views of the interior, a search for ‘hutments York’ in Google will show that several urban explorers/’guerilla historians’ have been undertaking recording exercises of their own. Thanks to them for capturing artistic and authentic images of a forgotten place. As for me, I just got some rather poor images of the exterior, on a few cold days in winter.

Though I can offer a few classy black and white images of the interior, taken many decades ago.

. . . . . .

Update: the buildings were demolished in 2011-12.

The post ‘A rare survival': WW2 service hostel appeared first on York Stories.

August 2011

Note: These buildings were demolished in 2011-12.

These buildings are hidden away behind York Art Gallery. Most people who have seen them think that they’re just a load of scruffy asbestos-ridden sheds. But they’re more interesting than that.

I went searching for accurate facts after noticing a lot of contradictory information on the web and elsewhere. The info below was compiled from dusty old volumes of council minutes, and various other sources (full list at foot of page).

• These ‘hutments’ (as such military-related encampments are called) were constructed at some point between May 1942 (after the ‘Baedeker raid‘) and 1944 (when they’re referred to in council minutes – see above)
• They were constructed as a service hostel or leave club by the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force).
• Soon after the war the buildings were adapted for educational use by the local authority. From 1946 until the end of January 1949 they were used as an Emergency Teacher Training College (in connection with the raising of the school leaving age)
• In 1949 they became the Marygate Centre of Further Education, with an emphasis on providing courses for women and girls, and continued as the Marygate Centre until the 1970s
• During the same period (late 1940s to 1970s) one of the former dormitories was allocated for use by the York School of Art, based in the adjacent Art Gallery building
• From 1981 the nearby Yorkshire Museum used the buildings for storage and workroom space.
• The buildings are ‘of prefab concrete frame construction with clay brick infill panels and asbestos sheet roofing’. This is similar to buildings of the period in use at Eden Camp and the Yorkshire Air Museum. However the current planning application states that demolition is ‘required for health and safety reasons’.
• During 2011 they have been emptied in preparation for demolition. Despite the fact that so few people understand the significance of what’s about to be demolished – even the journalists from our local Press.

It’s probably not feasible to keep the entire ‘hutments’ complex, but part of the structure should be retained on site.

Photos & more info

Photos (interior and exterior) of the buildings in the 1940s, as the RCAF service hostel

More detail on the years of educational use

Plan and links: York School of Art

General background and opinion on the proposed demolition

For more info and interior photos of the buildings in recent months, search for hutments York on Google.

Location

Sources

York City Council minutes; Annual Reports of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society; 17 Feb report prepared for CoYC meeting (PDF); documents submitted with the ‘big wheel’ planning application, eg this one and this one (PDF files); The history of the Yorkshire Museum and its geological collections, B J Pyrah (York, 1988); letter from Mr MacPherson of Ontario (held by the Yorkshire Air Museum) … and recent web-based photo galleries by urban explorers and ‘guerilla historians’ – thank you chaps, for showing us what we couldn’t get to see for ourselves.

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This page was last updated on 19 November 2013.

The post A history of the ‘hutments’ appeared first on York Stories.

April 2011

These photographs show the hutments behind the Art Gallery around the time of their construction, during the Second World War.

This exterior view shows the hutments complex, with the Minster towers on the right of the photo. The large building is the Art Gallery, and St Mary’s Tower is just visible on the extreme left.

They were used originally as a service hostel or leave club for members of the Royal Canadian Air Force stationed at local airfields.

The photos were sent to the Yorkshire Air Museum in 1998 by Oscar MacPherson, of Ontario. The accompanying letter explains that the photographer was a Mr Speed, the official government photographer for the area.

The photos below are interior views of the hutments in their original form as a service hostel, when the place was new and the floors were shiny. The buildings were demolished in 2011.

I’ve been reading through the city council minutes for more background on these buildings. It seems they were briefly the subject of some wrangling, post-war. Minutes dated 3 May 1946 note that the Ministry of Education wants to acquire the ‘Canadian YMCA Hostel’, but also note a ‘contrary proposal’ put forward by the Canadian YMCA ‘to continue the use of these premises for purposes other than the war-time purpose for which they were requisitioned.’ What this purpose was isn’t recorded. The buildings were however quickly adapted to educational use, and served this purpose for decades after the war.

See a history of the hutments for more information on these buildings and their use since the 1940s.

With thanks to the Yorkshire Air Museum.

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