The Cocoa Works in all its complexity, in times past

Previously, we were at the Cocoa Works development, the former Rowntree factory buildings facing Haxby Road. These are just part of what used to be a very large site, shown on the old image above.

Behind the main factory buildings, demolition took place more than a decade ago to clear the rest of this part of the site, back to the Wigginton Road entrance. (Wigginton Road is indicated by a line of trees in the top left of the image above.) This large site was then known as Nestlé South — as Nestlé retained more modern buildings to the north.

The cleared area behind the main factory buildings is now known as Cocoa West, and a planning application for its redevelopment has recently been approved.

This is an important development — the future of a place so significant in the history of this city I call home — and I appreciated having some free time to focus on it again — so let’s continue the journey, with photos taken earlier this month.

We start where the previous page ended, by the arch of the bridge that carried Haxby Road over the railway line in times past. We were looking up from it, at the factory buildings, but now stay at its level, down in the cutting between roads.

Haxby Road bridge over the cycle track (former railway line), 12 Dec 2021

What was a railway line has for some decades been a cycle track.

There are so many of these brick-built bridges curving across former railway lines. Easier to appreciate them now, passing under them on two wheels or on foot. As is often the case, this one is graffiti-covered. It doesn’t bother me at all, personally, down here under the curve of the bridges, I like the creativity of it, the bright bursts of colour.

Graffiti, Haxby Road bridge, 12 Dec 2021

‘AND THEY KEEP ON WALKIN …’ it says.

So let’s keep on doing that. Passing under the arch of the bridge, and coming out into the late afternoon sunlight, we pass one end of the old factory buildings previously discussed, here viewed through trees.

Old factory – Cocoa Works -from the cycle track

The trees alongside this former railway line have grown a lot since the trains ran through here. This section to the south of the old factory site is a tree-shaded green tunnel for cyclists and pedestrians, and a much-appreciated and well-used link between Haxby Road and Wigginton Road.

We approach the curved brick bridge carrying Wigginton Road over what used to be a railway line.

Cycle track, approaching Wigginton Road, December 2021

Here, on the section of track near Wigginton Road, the factory had its own stop, Rowntree Halt. I was pleased to find some images, and even a film, from the days when the trains ran down here.

Passenger train approaching Rowntree Halt, late 1980s. Still from BFI film.

There was also a line in to the factory site, pictured here. (There are a couple more images of the line and platform at the bottom of this page too, and a nice photo and more information on this page.)

As we get to the bridge, on a winter afternoon, the sunlight is so low, but let’s hope there’s enough left to illuminate and illustrate ‘Cocoa West’ …

Cycle track and bridge, Wigginton Road, 12 Dec 2021

We take a right turn here just before the bridge, and it takes us on a short section of cycle path through more trees, passing one of the old factory clocks, and to the Wigginton Road entrance to what used to be the other part of the old factory site.

Cocoa West, Wigginton Road, 12 Dec 2021

It’s a very large site, the size perhaps not clear from the image above.

Most of its buildings were cleared some years back. On this side, one small gatehouse remains, to remind us of the factory with such a long history.

By the entrance to the old factory site, Wigginton Rd

In the background are the old factory buildings visited on the previous page.

In late afternoon sun back in December 2009 I took photos from this Wigginton Road entrance as the range of buildings on this side of the site were being demolished.

Demolition of former factory buildings, from Wigginton Rd, Dec 2009

Quite a collection of structures, different shapes and sizes. What a confectionery manufacturer needed back then, and doesn’t need now.

Demolition of former factory buildings, from Wigginton Rd, Dec 2009

Melangeur block before demolition, Dec 2009

This month, so many years on from the demolition pictured above, a planning application  has been approved for housing development here. The Cocoa West development was approved at a recent planning committee meeting. Not just approved, but welcomed:

Councillor Michael Pavlovic said: “It really is heartening to hear of an application that ticks quite so many boxes – it’s not something this committee is used to from developers.”

The planning application documents state:

Our vision is for Cocoa West to become an uplifting and sustainable neighbourhood, with productive, ecologically rich landscapes and crafted architecture that respects the site’s heritage and celebrates its legacy

— and include images of how it will look:

Image from plans for Cocoa West (ref 21/01371/FULM)

A new link will be made to the cycle track/former railway line (shown on the right of the image above).

This place has been a long-running thread through these York Stories pages. I don’t have close personal family connection to the factory, and probably didn’t appreciate the Rowntree approach, and its legacy, when I was younger, as much as I should have done, but have appreciated it more in more recent years. Over the years I’ve included many pages on the Rowntree factory (see all pages tagged Rowntree on this link).

Dear readers, your knowledge, insights, comments, and coffees, are welcome as always.

The post From Cocoa Works to Cocoa West appeared first on York Stories.

Some months on from my earlier visit, I noticed in passing recently that there have been some visible changes to the former Rowntree factory building — aka the Cocoa Works development. I know many readers have fond memories of this place, and that many are interested in its redevelopment. I went up that way on Sunday to take some photos.

Cocoa Works from Haxby Road, 12 Dec 2021

As always, its brickwork catches the late afternoon light rather handsomely from this side, above the shade in the winter streets below.

Back in autumn 2004, on one of my York Walks, (heading for the old Fever Hospital, though a page about it didn’t appear until much later), I passed that corner and took a photo of the factory glowing in the sunlight of that year.

Corner of the factory building, from Haxby Rd bridge, 4 Nov 2004

Clearly, judging by the steam coming from it, the building was still in use at that point, but I’m not sure what this part of it was used for. (If you do, please add a comment below.)

That’s many years back. This old factory has been empty for years, awaiting redevelopment. When I wrote about it earlier this year, though there was a new section of road alongside it, there wasn’t much to see in terms of work on the building itself, but now there is.

Cocoa Works, 12 Dec 2021

A major recent change visible from the street is the work to remove the factory windows. And so many windows there are …

Window removal underway, 12 Dec 2021

Further along the long frontage I stopped to take a photo from a familiar reference point I’ve used before to record the changes here (mainly nature taking over, and also razor wire at one point).

Main entrance, 12 Dec 2021

Another photo taken all those years back, 2004, to compare with the above:

Entrance to the factory, 4 Nov 2004

But back into the present, as our walk along the long factory frontage takes us to the end of this massive building.

End of the old place …

The winter sun shines through it, while the adverts on the hoardings below show how it will look in the future.

I then headed round to the side the sun was on, Cocoa West, via the cycle track (former railway line), with the factory brickwork still sunlit above. More on Cocoa West soon.

. . . . .

Thanks to everyone who continues to support these pages with virtual coffees via ko-fi.

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‘Home Sweet Home’

On yesterday’s walk around the local patch I ended up at Haxby Road, at the old Rowntree factory. I hadn’t planned to go that way, but was on my way back home and it occurred to me that I probably should make a slight detour to see if any work had started yet on the redevelopment of the site.

Clearly it had, as the hoardings around the site made clear. Clever advertising slogan there: Home Sweet Home, as this of course was where so much confectionery was made, for so many decades.

The Rowntree name isn’t referenced in the naming of the development. It’s called the Cocoa Works. I guess I’d better start calling it that.

I walked along the factory frontage where the old railings and gates were hidden behind hoardings, with a few gaps.

Rusty Rowntree’s remnant, Cocoa Works site, 23 Jan 2021

Cocoa Works, work in progress at the old Rowntree factory, 23 Jan 2021

So many times over so many years I’ve stuck my camera through the main gate to take a photo of this entrance and the state of the land around it. Outbuildings to the left have been demolished since I was last up here. They were pictured on one of my earlier pages, on the factory frontage, in Feb 2013.  Blimey, nearly eight years ago. This building has been empty for so long.

Checking back on my earlier pages about this place I can see that there were many (most should appear in the ‘Related posts’ below), and that it’s almost exactly four years since I published a piece about the planning application for this development.

After taking the photo above I noticed a small section of the old factory railing, with an interesting history/archaeology of paint and rust.

Rowntree factory railing remnant, 23 Jan 2021

As I got to the end of the factory site I was quite surprised. Quite a dramatic change here: there’s a new road in.

Cocoa works development: new road, 23 Jan 2021

New road, 23 Jan 2021

It made me realise I hadn’t been up this way to look at this place for quite some time, and it was quite something to see a road running through it. Not that I could go any further along it, as it’s part of the building site and therefore gated off, but still, always interesting to see the opening up of new ways through old places.

New road, past the ‘home of Kit Kat’, 23 Jan 2021

It curves through past factories old and new. These days the manufacturing of Kit-Kat takes place in the building on the right.

On the horizon, just visible, are houses on Wigginton Road. The road is planned to go through to Wigginton Road, eventually.

I took many more photos, but as you can see, the light was quite low by this time and so it wasn’t that easy to get good images (particularly as I’ve had to go back to using a rather old digital camera after my newer one stopped working some time ago).

I headed back, past the factory and the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library, and the many adverts for the development all along the site boundary.

‘A new community’, 23 Jan 2021

I crossed the bridge over the former railway line (now cycle track). The late sun is pleasing as it lights this end of the building.

Lit by late afternoon sun, 23 April 2021

Sadly the rather handsome top bit, a bit castle-like, will be altered by the conversion to residential, as previously discussed.

. . . . .

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Homestead Park, 12 September 2018

It’s a calm autumn morning here in York, as I write. Sunny and still. I’ve just been out into the garden to collect my thoughts before sitting down to work, trying to appreciate the sunshine and the stillness … But instead I found myself pacing about, thinking about Persimmon … more specifically, Persimmon’s plans for the pitch, for the football ground.

This serious subject and others will need weighty words at some point, but for now I think a walk in the park is needed, via some photos I took at Homestead Park, Clifton, earlier this month. With some thoughts, on land use, and greenery, and generosity.

One afternoon recently, feeling that I’d spent too much time looking at a computer screen, and with information overload meaning my brain was struggling to find space for the details of planning applications and other local matters of importance, I felt a need for a walk, some sunshine, and to ‘rest my eyes in shades of green‘, as the song puts it. There’s greenery in my small garden, but it doesn’t get the sun later in the day, and walking helps to put things in perspective. As I headed off purposefully towards the greenery of Clifton Green and the riverside someone else’s garden suggested itself – Seebohm’s garden, as it used to be. Now more familiar as Homestead Park.

Near the Water End entrance to the park there’s a relatively new circle garden, which I’ve mentioned before, in a review of the year. By a rather beautiful and soothing water feature (pictured above) a screen of ironwork with clear panels, with poetry, leaves framing the poems and the scene beyond.

This park includes so much, in separate areas, which combined together make it a fine place to visit. Everything here is handsome and well-maintained. Helpful signs point the way.

It has changed a lot over the decades, but with its handsomeness constantly enhanced. This year the planting near the children’s play area includes wonderful willow sculptures, by Leilah Vyner (dragonwillow.co.uk), inspired by the book The House at Pooh Corner.

Poor old gloomy Eeyore, with his downward-hanging ears.

I’d been feeling a bit like Eeyore, but by the time I left Homestead Park I felt more like Tigger.

How about a game of Pooh sticks …

All around, the scent from generous plantings of heliotrope.

These sculptures might not be here permanently, but nearby is the permanent  and well-established Backhouse Pond, with a path around it weaving under trees, past fine old acers, even over a little bridge over a stream. Though there was a period when it seemed to be closed off most of the time, the gates in its railings are now open again.

Beyond that, on the Shipton Road side of the park, there’s a less formal area, open space with grass and trees.

I sat awhile here and watched squirrels dashing across the grass, lit by long shadows, while bits of beech nut fell on my head from the squirrels in the tree above. One squirrel came very close, scampered from nut to nut, checking a couple, then finding one it liked the look of, ran off with it across the grass. The squirrel was too quick for me to capture it on camera, but here are some of the rejected bits of beech nut.

Squirrels can of course also be seen in the Museum Gardens, in the city centre. What you can’t find in the Museum Gardens, at least in recent years, is toilets. Another impressive thing about Homestead Park is that it has these essential facilities, freely provided. And rather nice old signs on the building too.

Time to head back to work, past the handsome herbaceous borders near the Water End entrance.

If you’d like to stay a bit longer in the park, I can offer a couple of earlier visits, from 2007, and 2004 (though my photos were much smaller then, and the 2004 page won’t look good for many readers viewing on phones and other smaller devices).

Some years back (2006) I reflected on aspects of the history of the park, and its Rowntree connection, and how it’s another example of that family’s generosity and philanthropy.

I first visited here as a child, and back then I was of course familiar with the name Rowntree, but only from seeing the name so often on sweets and chocolates. Now, when I think about the Rowntree name, and this park, and particularly when I sit awhile on the bench in the meadow area of the park, I think about the Rowntree legacy in terms of land, land use. I think about how this part of Clifton might have looked so different, covered with buildings, if land here hadn’t been bought by the Rowntree family back then.

Over on the other side of town there’s Rowntree Park, its name making the connection with the famous family more obvious. Here, at the Homestead, the name should remind us that this land was part of someone’s home, or rather, the garden of that home, and that it was opened up for other people to enjoy, kept green and open, full of trees and flowers, and that it remains that way, and I hope it always will.

Hard to imagine anything like that happening now, isn’t it. Homeowners with extra garden space they don’t need have in recent times been more likely to sell the land for redevelopment, for the much-needed housing. So the gaps between the buildings get smaller, and we value more and more the green and grassy areas we have left.

Having rested my eyes in these shades of green it’s time to return to consideration of another piece of land, not far away, where the green grass is soon to make way for houses. I understand if you’d rather stay in the park (there’s more info on it here), but I’ll have to get back to my desk.

. . . . .

When I can, I like to focus on cheering and positive things here in York, and when dealing with the difficult, I try to do it thoughtfully, in a considered kind of way. If you appreciate these pages, and this particular approach, then you might like to support it with virtual coffees. Thank you to everyone who supports the site in this way, helps pay the hosting fees, and keeps it green and growing.

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Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library, one evening in January 2017: doors open

A cheering sight — a building that has been boarded up and unused for years pictured here with its front door open and the lights on. Not just any old building, but the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library. Looks welcoming, doesn’t it, on a dark winter night.

Last week, for one day only, it was open from 3pm-8pm for an exhibition of plans for the Cocoa Works development. Last week I wrote about that, and illustrated it with some of the images from the display boards. But I also took photos of the building itself, as it’s the first time I’ve been inside it, and it may be the only chance local residents get to see inside it, depending on whether it has any community-based use in the future.

There are no books here now, but the shelving remains. Here’s a view of the ground floor area to the left as you enter.

Interior view, Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library

Here it is in an older photograph, from the 1930s:

Library interior in the 1930s (Photo: the Rotarian, 1937)

The library opened in 1927. In August 2007 it was given a Grade II listing. The reasons for the designation:

• The library is an intact and unaltered example of an inter-war library
• It has strong historical associations with the nationally important figure of Joseph Rowntree
• It retains a large number of original fittings and fixtures of high quality
• The library is an unaltered example of Arts and Crafts inspired architecture

(Source: historicengland.org.uk)

The windows are metal-framed and leaded.

The larger window at the end had signs of damage, as if there had been some attempt to force it, from the outside. The windows are boarded up now.

On the stairs, a few framed posters.

The exhibition was downstairs only. Upstairs, without lights on, I had to rely on the camera’s flash. Just a small compact camera, so not a powerful flash, but it illuminated enough to give some idea.

Interior view, first floor, Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library

In the photo above we’re at the top of the short flight of stairs, looking in to the first floor room, facing the front of the building. The room has fitted magazine racks and cupboards.

With the flash turned off, that main window is rather handsome, with the light coming through from the street outside:

Only a small room. In the corner an inscription, hard to read at the time and difficult to get a clear image of:

Inscription, in a corner

It says:

‘A NUMBER OF
BOOKS IN THIS
ROOM ARE FROM
JOSEPH
ROWNTREE’S
PERSONAL LIBRARY
PRESENTED TO THE
COCOA WORKS BY
HIS CHILDREN

There’s also another inscription, which I didn’t see, but which is quoted in the listing entry.

Heading back down the stairs, peeling paint …

… and a sudden and rather impressive view of the main factory building behind, looming out of the gloom.

From library to factory

I’ve had to digitally enhance the image, it was more grey as I saw it, just enough light behind the factory for it to be visible as a bulky presence on the horizon. So much of a contrast to the building we were in, but of course linked to this little library, and so many other buildings here around the factory.

Down the stairs then, back to the ground floor.

And by the door, as we left, a cardboard tube drew my attention to an elegant curved umbrella stand.

I did include this next image on last week’s page — an inscription just above the entrance. I’d been in the building a while before I noticed it. An inscription above the door but facing into the room, meaning you see it as you leave, not as you enter. A gentle reminder of what this building is about.

THIS LIBRARY IS ERECTED AS A MEMORIAL TO JOSEPH ROWNTREE 1836-1925 IN GRATITUDE FOR A LIFE OF DEVOTED SERVICE

It was good to see the interior of this building, after knowing it only as a closed and boarded-up place.

I wonder if that room upstairs could be kept for community use in some way, as perhaps a bookable meeting room for small local groups, or if it could at least remain open to visitors interested in the Rowntree legacy and the history of these buildings here.

I hope too that the view from the window on its stairs will remain unobscured, as it’s so impressive. A massive functional factory building framed by a small leaded library window. So different, but so much linked. Reminders of the Rowntree legacy and rich Rowntree heritage here in this part of York.

More information/updates

See also my earlier page (2012) Rowntree’s: books and beauty
Recent plans for the Cocoa Works site were highlighted in Cocoa Works: plans for Rowntree factory buildings.

January 2021 update: what’s happening on the larger factory site, of which this library is a part: Cocoa Works: Rowntree factory development.

Historic England listing

The Rowntree Society website has historical information and interior photos

Many fascinating old photos including some of the library in the York Press photo gallery: 67 old photos: The Rowntree/Nestlé buildings

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From the cycle track, July 2011

On Tuesday (24 January) I received an email invitation to an exhibition of plans for the old Rowntree factory buildings. The plans were to be displayed in the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library in front of the factory, for one day only, that afternoon and evening.

This page includes some information from that event, from the display boards, as I know that many people who would have been interested didn’t know about it. And it needs to be widely known about, I reckon. Even more important than the Terry’s development, I reckon. Some personal opinions follow. Feel free to add your own, in the comments.

Plans for the Cocoa Works: redevelopment of Rowntree factory buildings

Sheds/chalets on the roof

I was pleased to be inside the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library. More on that story later.

I really wasn’t pleased to see this proposal on how the building behind it might look:

Proposed extra bit on top of the factory buildings

Note the addition, above the original parapet.

This is a massive factory building. This illustration shows an extra floor added, and I really don’t know what to say. These days I don’t tend to fling terms like ‘greedy developers’ into my pages. But I don’t know how else to react to this.

It ruins the building, looks cheap. It looks like a load of sheds, or holiday chalets, plonked on the top, to maximise profit. Six floors already I think? Is that not enough?

Here’s another view of how those cheeky sheds/chalets might look, from the southern approach (from town, heading out of town), again from the display boards:

Additions proposed on the top of the Rowntree factory buildings

The remaining factory buildings are in general quite plain and functional. The sheer bulk of what’s left is still impressive, but the really impressive bit is the corner you see when approaching from town, heading out on Haxby Road. Or from the cycle track below, where its proud corner is seen to best advantage. The former route of the railway line that used to link to the factory.

From the cycle track, July 2011

The former Rowntree factory still towers proud above it. If you know the local landscape and its history it’s full of significance. Full of meaning and memory, collective York memory.

Imagine that photo above with the shed-like/chalet thing sticking up above it.

If the proposals go ahead I’ll look the other way when cycling or walking past it, and not be able to look up at it with fondness and York-based understanding and pride, as I do now.

Does that matter? Maybe not, if the main need is to maximise profit/cram as many people into it as possible. But is that where we’ve got to? The limit of our aspirations?

It takes years to understand the place, get to know its meanings, what things stand for, why they’re important. I’m still learning, we all are.

But in the end it probably doesn’t matter what we know or don’t, as it’s all about the money, profit.

I’ve tried to be tolerant and accepting of inevitable change, but this goes beyond my limits of tolerance. I hope that we’ll all oppose the imposing of a tasteless extra layer on this important landmark building.

I’m not sure about a campaign slogan. ‘Fight the chalets’/’Oppose the sheds’?

Road … only for buses?

The proposals include a new road, cutting through across the site between Wigginton Road and Haxby Road, alongside the retained factory buildings. I’m not a car driver, but I know how horrendously congested Wigginton Road is, around the Crichton Ave junction in particular. So a road through to relieve some of that, so that all the cars aren’t heading for the fork where Haxby Road and Wigginton Road meet, the junction in front of Groves Chapel, what a great opportunity to disperse some of that traffic, in a more logical way.

But it seems this new road is just for buses. It seems to have some bollard thing in the middle preventing it being used as a link road between Wigginton Road and Haxby Road.

Whereas my impression is that a link road to relieve the traffic on Wigginton Road is exactly what we need in this area, and that to build a road and then not let most people use it is really quite illogical.

I’m baffled about this. Perhaps someone else can add more info on why a road is being constructed at great expense just for buses to use. What a waste.

But then, this current scheme can only build half of the road anyway, as Newby have only half the site.

In context

To put this site into its wider context, again with an image from the display boards, the red boundary line shows the site in question:

Cocoa Works development, site boundary

It’s part of the Nestle South site, not all of it. Behind it is a large area where many of the old Rowntree factory buildings were cleared, some years ago. The site we’re looking at on this page is the most impressive part, fronting on to Haxby Road. The main factory buildings, with the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library in front, and trees and garden areas.

Cocoa Works, site plans: “Access and Transport”, from the 24 Jan 2017 exhibition

Convenience store

The plans show a convenience store at the edge of the site, on the corner of the new road where it meets Haxby Road. It’s the strange triangular shape on the image above. If it was a Co-op that would be great, as we don’t have a Co-op on this side of town. But it will probably end up being something disappointing like a Spar.

And the library …

Well, it was nice to be in the library, and I ended up taking more photos of it than I did of the display boards. As the library is a listed building it will be part of the plans, but from information available it seems likely it might end up being some kind of concierge thing for the accommodation in the factory buildings behind. So not very inspiring really, for a building erected in gratitude for the life of Joseph Rowntree. But the owners can do what they like with it. They could try to be true to the spirit of the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Library, understand and respect the place, be philanthropic, be visionary, thoughtful … or they could just turn it into a place for the people in the flats to collect parcels.

In gratitude

Publicity and consultation

I couldn’t find any more information online about the exhibition of these plans. I asked about this, and was sent the leaflet distributed to local residents, which I shared on Twitter, within hours of receiving it, but too late for many people to get to the exhibition.

Apparently it had also been advertised in the Press, but despite searching, I couldn’t find the information on the Press website.

Below is a copy of the questionnaire/survey I picked up from the event. (Which I had to scan, convert to PDF, and upload. Medal please …)

I don’t need a medal really. Just please, people of York, people of anywhere, stop the chalets on the roof.

oneill-associates-cocoa-works-dev-questionnaire-jan2017 (PDF)

The PDF should give you some idea of what the ‘consultation’ event asked for responses on, and you can see in due course if they took any notice.

You can also email responses to enquiries@oneill-associates.co.uk by 3 February 2017. If you do so, I suggest you put ‘Cocoa Works plans’ in the subject line and ask for an acknowledgement that your views will be noted.

There’s a planning application to follow, which of course will be the main opportunity to comment.

Too large and complex a scheme to cover adequately in one page. It’s taken many hours already but it needs returning to later.

. . . . .

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It’s quite frustrating that people like me have to fill in the gaps, try to get info out there. I don’t get paid for doing this. Please have a look at supporting this site in 2017.

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