York Official Guide and Miniguide, 1971/72

Researching for a piece I’m trying to write led me back to my small collection of York-related booklets and pamphlets. I’ve included parts of a few of them before. Some years back I wrote about an advert for cigarette lighters made from York Minster fragments, from the ‘York Official Guide and Miniguide’, dating from 1971/1972. I picked up the booklet and several other similar publications in the closing down sale at the Barbican Bookshop on Fossgate.

As we’re now in another lockdown, in the middle of a particularly difficult time, I thought I’d share some more of this early 1970s publication with you, dear readers, in case anyone’s in need of some gentle nostalgia, and fancies escaping back to the early 1970s for a while.

The first page of the guide is an advert for Mulberry Hall  which was previously included on this page from 2016. Mulberry Hall appears to have been a regular advertiser in the various updated editions of the York Official Guide, as was this company:

Early 1970s ad for Yorkshire General, Rougier Street

Nice illustration. The smiley couple are in Rougier Street, with the company’s head office in the background, and a groovy old bus. The same illustration, cropped in a slightly different way, has been included previously, on this page about the building. (The building is still there but has recently been converted to a hotel (not a residential development, as had been planned when I wrote that page back in 2016).

Another full page ad, with a suprisingly large amount of white space, advertises “One of England’s lovelier shops”, Hunter and Smallpage, on Goodramgate.

Hunter and Smallpage, Goodramgate, early 1970s ad

It was a furniture shop, right in the town centre, with its own car park. Imagine that.

More on the shops:

From the official York Guide, 1971/2

Back then, Marks and Spencer’s was a “must” for the overseas visitor.  And if you were after “exciting and colourful clothes” you might be interested in Vivien Smith Simply Clothes, on Micklegate, which also advertised in the guide book:

Early 1970s ad for Vivien Smith, Simply Clothes

What a groovy advert, very 70s. Big heavy curvy typeface and an expressive illustration of a woman with long hair and dreamy eyes looking a bit bored, and perhaps dreaming of a better future. It promises “Something new in Old York.”

The “E.C. Wednesday” must refer to early closing.

This visitor’s guide includes a brief description of various city centre streets the tourist might want to visit. Of Fossgate it says:

Early 1970s description of Fossgate

“Little to see” on Fossgate, back then, apart from a few notable buildings.

In recent years Fossgate has clearly become quite a happening kind of place, far busier than it was then, quite a high profile kind of street. Its buildings are much the same as they were then, but used for different purposes, with many popular places to eat and drink.

Many visitors to the city are perhaps now not so focused on what they see, in terms of touring round the famous historic buildings, but equally interested in the vast choice York offers in terms of dining, and drinking.

Quite different back in the early 1970s, as previously highlighted on an earlier page featuring another publication from that time.

The local restaurants and culinary traditions also get a bit of a write-up in this early 1970s York Official Guide – “few provide dishes from the range of great Northern and Yorkshire specialities: black pudding, tripe and onions …”

‘Yorkshire Cooking’ … from an early 1970s guide

I don’t recall ever hearing the phrase quoted at the end, which was perhaps from much earlier times. At this point, as a child growing up in Acomb, York, I have a vague memory of Yorkshire puddings with golden syrup.

I also have a vague memory of visiting this place, which had a half page ad in the early 1970s guide, and again looks very much of its time:

Flamingo Park advert, early 1970s

My exploration of this particular early 1970s publication continues, but I’ve got distracted by a bit of historical research prompted by its adverts. More on that story later perhaps.

. . . . .

(Apologies that some of some of the above images are a bit wonky. I thought that they then more authentically conveyed that they’re scans of an actual booklet with pages, which had to be carefully placed on the scanner, as of course one has to be careful with these ancient historical documents …)

More …

If you’d like to look at more from the 1970s, try this link for a selection. Some adverts from an early 1980s York Official Guide can be found on this link. A 1961 York Guide is covered at some length on this page. If you’d like to go back even further, how about When Bettys was Betty’s, and other 1930s ads.

. . . . .

I hope that this has been of interest and offered a brief break from the current times. Thank you to the kind readers who continue to help out with the website hosting fees, and power these pages, with virtual coffees. More about the background to all this is on this page.

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New Sports Direct store (formerly BHS), Coney Street

Recently, the new Sports Direct and USC stores have opened in what used to be BHS, on Coney Street. This was reported in the York Press as ‘a major boost for York’s premier shopping street’.

A brief wander into town on Christmas Day took in Coney Street, as I wanted photos of a particular shop further along the street, and thought I’d have a look at the new occupant of the former BHS, pictured above.

On a normal day when the shops are open it’s difficult to stand about in Coney Street staring at things and pondering, and taking lots of photos, without looking a bit weird and drawing attention to yourself. I called in on Coney Street this year on Christmas Day to stand and stare and to try to see it as it is now, in an objective kind of way.

Did the street look rejuvenated and reinvigorated now the former BHS was occupied again?

Well … not in a way that appealed to me.

Sports Direct, Coney Street, new store , Dec 2019

I looked at the new shopfront for the USC/Sports Direct store and thought it looked jarringly garish, out of place. A cloudy December day, a quiet street, a street with an ancient history (and not just as ‘York’s main shopping street’).

Large screens in its windows offered fast-moving images to the virtually empty street.

I stood directly in front of it and looked back towards the St Helen’s Square end of Coney Street, taking in the line of shops continuing on from the new store.

Coney Street, 25 Dec 2019

It all looked a bit rubbish, a bit wrong, a bit dated … well, a bit late-20th century. Like the new storefront had landed there in a street that was fading away from what the new store represents.

Looking above the shop level on Coney Street we have handsome buildings, or at least an interesting mix of them. Blending in harmoniously, in brick, wood, iron, lead, small and often wonky windows, the occasional weed (probably buddleia) growing out of a drainpipe …

Down here at street level, plastic signage on the shops that are open and rather desperate-looking shops that aren’t open. And the new shiny plastic of the Sports Direct logo looking too bright and garish on this faded shopping street.

What I thought did look completely ‘at home’ on Coney Street was this shop, Fabrication:

Fabrication, Coney Street, 25 Dec 2019

I mentioned it before – it was here in December 2018 and I’m pleased to see that it still is part of Coney Street. It’s in one of the older handsome buildings near the corner with New Street. It sells handmade things, made locally.

Fabrication, Coney Street, interior (apologies for poor quality, photo taken through the window when it was closed)

For some years now I’ve been thinking about the phrase ‘spending power’.

And how the ‘power’ bit of it should be the most focused on, rather than the spending, but that it probably isn’t.

Or maybe that’s changing, at last.

Anyway, on Coney Street there’s a big new store where you can buy things to help support Mike Ashley’s retail empire. Personally I don’t find that very exciting.

I’m finding Coney Street more fascinating than I did before, but mainly because I’m waiting for it to find its 21st century reinvigorated self.

. . . . .

This is one of the December Daily pages, supported by your virtual coffees. Thanks for your interest in, and support of, these pages.

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Front cover of the official guide: City and County of the City of York (1961). Illustration by Kenneth Steel.

I’ve recently been perusing an interesting guide to York, bought as part of a small pile of publications from the Barbican Bookshop, in its closing down sale, some years back. As previously mentioned, I found the ‘local interest’ shelves pretty much cleared, but a few little treasures were found. (See ‘related posts’, below, for several of them.)

I’ve wanted to mention this particular guidebook, and feature a few scans of its pages, for some time.

Much of it is the familiar tourist-focused information on the Minster and other famous buildings. But alongside that are many pages illustrating York as it was for people living in the city, the places where residents worked and shopped.

My particular copy was once the property of Moorlands Hotel in Whitby, the stamp in the front suggests. I wonder how and when it ended up tucked away in a corner of a secondhand bookshop in York.

The booklet was published ‘by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of the City of York’.

Title page of the 1961 York guide

For me, looking at this title page of the booklet, the inclusion of the ‘Citizens’ — and the fact that the word is capitalised — really stands out. Do we use the word ‘citizens’ as often now? Probably not, and perhaps not with this amount of civic pride.

The guide, in its introductory ‘Welcome to York’ page, ends with:

‘This book is not intended for the delectation of visitors only, but also for the men, women and children who dwell within the boundaries of our City.  The citizens of York are proud of their City, and York is proud of its citizens.  No matter where they may roam, those who have lived within the sound of the Minster bells, and have trodden its old streets, never forget the City of their birth or adoption, and for them this book may perhaps bring back happy memories.’

It’s perhaps even more likely to provoke memories now it’s 57 years old, and it certainly gives an insight into the city as it was at the start of the 1960s.

After many pages of the kind of information you’d expect to find in a guide for visitors — the history of the city, and its well-known historic buildings — the subject of page 69 is the University of York, not built at that point, but clearly seen as an exciting and important thing for the city, after government approval in 1960.

‘The university will be built at Heslington, less than a mile from the city walls, on a site of nearly 200 acres which includes Heslington Hall and its grounds.’

This is followed by a page on the city’s library and information service, and several pages on the history and uses of the Ouse, then brief information on the strays (mainly the Knavesmire), and the city’s parks and open spaces. There’s then, rather surprisingly, a ‘French Section’, which is actually just the one page. My French is quite poor but this part stood out:

From the French section of the 1961 guide to York

Ah yes, the wagons de chemin de fer, the chocolat and the instruments optiques. It sounds even more impressive in French.

The reason this is in the French summary section is because this official guide, in 1961, devoted a whole four pages to ‘Commerce and Industry’ (pages 88-91). Featuring, as you might expect, Rowntree and Co Ltd, followed by Joseph Terry and Sons Ltd. But then a reminder that the city’s workforce in the factories didn’t just make chocolate, with a page on the York Carriage and Wagon Works (aka the carriageworks), followed by a page on Cooke, Troughton and Simms Ltd. (Cooke’s factory was at the Haxby Road site where the new mental health facility is to be built.)

The advertisements towards the back of the guide remind us too of other places where many York citizens worked, back then.

Examples of Adams Hydraulics ironwork can of course be seen all over York, if you’re paying attention to ground level ironwork (and perhaps in particular, as a 21st century citizen, if you’ve had concerns about silted-up street drains).

Adams Hydraulics, advert from the 1961 guide

Big buildings advertised by Shepherd’s, including one for the University of Leeds which seems to be still in use (see Google Street View), though it seems less likely that the ‘Boiler House for 52 acre factory’ will have survived. (A quick Google suggests that the building was apparently still standing in 2010.)

Shepherd, advert from the 1961 guide

And then Shepherd Homes, building family housing out in the expanding suburbs:

Shepherd Homes, advert from the 1961 guide

From where the citizens of York might have worked and lived, to where they shopped:

Hunter and Smallpage, Goodramgate, advert from the 1961 guide

Hunter and Smallpage’s advert inside the back cover of the guidebook highlights that the shop had ‘6 floor showrooms’ and its own private car park, which must have been where Café Luca is now.

I remember the name Hunter and Smallpage, but don’t remember a store called Harts. But Harts also advertised in the 1961 guide, with a map showing the locations of various landmarks, including their shop:

1961 York guide: advert for Harts store

Interesting that the map includes mention of the telephone exchange, which of course at that time would have been a fairly new building, and was clearly seen as a landmark worthy of mention. And in the bottom corner of this page, the last page of the guide, mention of the printer of this official guide to York, in 1961. Printed locally, of course, at Ben Johnson’s, as so many things were, back then.

When I first thought about including this 1961 guide I thought it would be a case of just scanning some of the pages and adding them without too much comment, perhaps no comment at all. But it always ends up being more complicated than that, and several hours on from when I started this ‘quick page’ I find I’ve still not finished, as looking carefully always prompts more questions, and usually more Googling. So I just have to mention the cover illustrations of this lovely guidebook, and the fact that when scanning it I paid more attention to the signature, Kenneth Steel, apparently. The back cover illustration is particularly pleasing.

1961 York guide, back cover. Illustration by Kenneth Steel.

Footnote

… Gentle nostalgia, sometimes … getting to grips with important current things sometimes … hundreds of pages of all kinds of things here on this citizen’s record of York and its changes. And all without annoying adverts or pop-ups nagging you to join my mailing list (though you can do that on this link if you’d like to), and all proper ‘authentic’, independent, and apparently unique. Looking after this online resource I’ve built up over the years also involves paying website hosting fees every month. If you’d like to say thanks for this online resource, virtual coffees are always appreciated. I continue to add to these pages what I can, when I can. Thanks for your interest and support,
Lisa

The post York in 1961 appeared first on York Stories.

Statement explaining reasons for closure, in the window of Burgins, Coney Street

Recently, in local media reports, there has been a focus on the declining ‘retail offer’ in York city centre. Long-established shops closing, shop units empty for a long time on the main shopping streets, so many restaurants and bars opening instead. It’s a trend we’ve all noticed and it has been going on for a while.

Because of this trend I started to think about the shops that have been around for decades, since I was a teenager, since the 1980s. Small city centre shops, family businesses many of them, places selling useful things.

In summer last year I started to take photos of some of them, intending to publish a page on the subject back then. I didn’t get around to it, but now seems a good time.

The local media outlets are focused on news, so a new shop opening gets attention, and shops closing get attention, because they’re ‘events’, newsworthy. In between the opening and the closing there’s the long slow matter of building a business and keeping it going.

So a few photos follow, a reminder of some of the survivors, small local businesses that have been around for some decades in the city centre. Notes and queries follow towards the end of the page.

In a particularly handsome shop, in the shadow of the Minster, Shared Earth.

Shared Earth, on the corner of Minster Gates and Petergate

Some wonderful things in here, handsome wood and colourful textiles. More information on Shared Earth and its history (it opened in 1986) can be found on the website.

Round the other side of the Minster, on Goodramgate, Make Your Mark, selling rubber stamps.

Make Your Mark, Goodramgate

I’ve never bought a rubber stamp, but did notice that the shopfront and website says that this city centre shop has been providing them since 1985, which is an impressively long time.

Just down the road, by Monk Bar (as its name suggests), the Monk Bar Model Shop.

Monk Bar Model Shop, 2 Goodramgate

Still going strong, after 54 years. I’ve never been in, but have often admired their window display. More information on the website.

On Patrick Pool, near the Shambles market, Ernie Roy’s (which I’ve written about before).

Ernest Roy, Patrick Pool

The marvellously-named Duttons for Buttons, on Coppergate.

Duttons for Buttons, Coppergate

I was in here recently, not for buttons, but for thread for sewing, which they also sell. They were very helpful in assisting me to get the right shade of green to match a garment I was trying to mend. See their website for more on the history of this shop, and the page about Duttons on the Indie York website (worth a browse for information on other local independent businesses).

On the corner of Colliergate and King’s Square, Tullivers.

Tullivers, Colliergate

Tullivers (from King’s Square, by the mulberry tree)

See the Tullivers website for more information on this valued local shop. It’s a place I’ve been going in for years, recently to buy flour after starting to make bread at home on a regular basis. (I was pleased to see that the range includes flours from Suma, a workers’ co-operative founded in the late 70s in Leeds, and apparently still thriving.)

And of course Barnitts, also on Colliergate, indeed taking up much of one side of the street, with expansion into more shop units in the last decade or so.

Dear old Barnitts, Colliergate

Barnitts is still a family-owned business and it has been part of York for well over a century. ‘I love Barnitts’, people will say. It’s one of those shops that has always been there, its being there gives a sense of continuity and solidity, while all around it changes. Taken for granted, a bit, perhaps.

Though I’m reminded of this mention of its caring customer service, and was also interested to read this thought-provoking comment on the shop’s ‘dementia friendliness':

There’s a Hardware shop in York called Barnitts. It is a labyrinth of doors, floors, multiple entrances and shelves stacked to the rafters with the most complex array of materials and gadgets – a real assault on the senses. The York Minds and Voices DEEP group all agree that it is the most ‘dementia friendly’ place in York. Why? – not because it has a sticker in the window, or that the staff have undergone some awareness programme – no. But because staff are everywhere, because it is disorientating for EVERYONE who enters. The staff know this and will take you to the item you need and even run upstairs and fetch stuff, regardless of any disability or diagnosis.

(https://dementiafriendly.wordpress.com/2017/07/11/im-not-sure-i-like-that/ – the whole piece is well worth reading)

Some city centre shops have managed to survive and prosper and others haven’t. If they have prospered in the past it appears that it’s now harder and harder to maintain a city centre presence, for a variety of reasons.

In a ‘utopian’ vision of York I wrote some months back I included the hope that the staying power of maintaining things would be celebrated, in the face of the recent celebrating of endless innovating. I’ve started loads of things, in a spirit of enthusiasm, that bit is relatively easy. It’s the sustaining that’s hard, isn’t it.

There are clearly many factors affecting the ‘retail offer’ in the city centre, and some of them we can’t do much about. We don’t have much power, most of us. But we have our ‘spending power’, and that’s something I’ve thought about more and more as I’ve got older. It’s political, it’s important, what we enable and support with our money (and what the powers that be support, or demand more rent and business rates from).

If we want York city centre to still have shops selling useful things, where many people, often over several generations, have worked to make it work, with the profits and wages going to people who have a connection to/roots in the city, I guess it would help if more of us shopped at them more often.

It’s difficult to imagine what the city centre will look like, and feel like, if the current trends continue.

Comments?

In the small selection above I’ll have missed other city centre shops I probably should have included, so feel free to add comments to highlight others within the city walls that have been around since the 80s or before. Nice positive comments about any of the above, or thoughtful comments about the retail offer in general are also welcome. Negative comments about disappointing visits to individual shops aren’t welcome and may be removed — please use more appropriate things like Google reviews for those kinds of complaints — we’re trying to be positive and supportive here on this page. Thanks.

. . . . .

I haven’t been paid for this free promotion/advertising of selected local businesses – it’s just something I put together in my usual ‘interested observer’ kind of way. If you appreciate the above, virtual coffees are welcome, as always.

You can find me on Twitter, or join the mailing list for updates on recent additions.

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Advert for Mulberry Hall, early 1970s

I heard this morning that Mulberry Hall is closing, later confirmed by a statement on the company’s website.

A page a couple of days ago included an ad from one of the old guidebooks I have, and before they’re put back on the shelf it seems appropriate to include the advertisements for Mulberry Hall, so prominent in those publications. The one above is from a guide apparently dating from the early 1970s. The advert features well-known names: Royal Doulton, Wedgwood, Spode, Waterford.

I’ve got three of these guides, from the early 1970s, late 1970s and early 1980s. They’re the ‘Official Guide’, published by the Lord Mayor, Councillors and Citizens, it says in the front.

York, Official Guide, early 1970s, front cover

Alongside information on the city’s history and tourist attractions are many pages of adverts, as you might expect. I imagine it cost quite a lot to advertise in these ‘official guides’, particularly on their most prominent pages.

Every edition I have has an advert for Rowntree Mackintosh Ltd on the back cover, a full page, in full colour.

Apart from the back cover the most prestigious place for ads would be the first page you saw when you opened the front cover of the guidebook. This, in my three editions, is an advert for Mulberry Hall.

Late 1970s advert for Mulberry Hall

Looking at the map illustration I was struck by the fact that at this time Mulberry Hall appeared to have three separate shops some distance apart: the main shop on Stonegate, then also a ‘Doulton Shop’ and a ‘Wedgwood Shop’ in different premises further along the street and opposite. My quick online research suggests that the Doulton shop in Stonegate opened in 1974 and the Wedgwood one in 1978/9.

The original shop seems to have expanded in size so perhaps these were all brought together into the one location since.

Records available online show that earlier this year two planning applications were submitted, one for listed building consent for subdivision of the shop at 17-19 Stonegate into 3 commercial units (appears to be essentially putting them back to how they were), and one for a change of use for the Little Stonegate part – from retail to restaurant/bar. This application was later withdrawn.

There are already many comments on the Press website offering theories and opinions on why the shop is closing: it’s the fault of the council, in approving out of town shopping schemes, or it’s because of parking charges in the city centre, or too much traffic in the city centre, or pedestrianisation of the city centre.

Many people are saying they’re ‘shocked’. I wonder how many of the shocked people regularly shopped in Mulberry Hall? We so rarely look to ourselves? If the city centre shops are to stay open then we need to spend more money in them, don’t we.

But perhaps sometimes things have just had their day, and tastes change, and younger generations don’t shop at the same places their parents shopped. I’ve never bought anything at Mulberry Hall. I have a set of plates in the cupboard that I think came from there, a moving in gift, many years ago. They’re lovely to look at, but they’re too posh to use, so I use the plain white cheap ones instead.

Realising my ignorance, I’ve been in search of information, and stumbled upon an account of a trip to York in 1980:

… once we’d seen the Minster, we walked over to Stonegate St.—a very nice pedestrian area. When we were here four years ago, Margaret bought her Spode china at Mulberry Hall on Stonegate St., and I got some very nice bone china coffee mugs which I like very much. I got two more today and also a thimble for my collection. I found the quiche dish in the quince pattern that Nancy Thuma wanted too, at Mulberry Hall’s Wedgwood shop, so I got that too.

— Betty Burrow’s Travelogue (1980) (PDF)

If you knew the shop well and would like to add information, memories and thoughts,  comments are welcome below.

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All that engagement with changes and happenings in present-day York can get a bit tiring can’t it. Let’s have a break with some gentle nostalgia from ancient times … the early 1980s … via a selection of adverts.

As mentioned some time back, I’ve a small collection of York-related pamphlets and guides bought in the closing down sale of the Barbican Bookshop. Following on from the selection of adverts from an early 1970s guide I thought readers might enjoy this selection from around ten years later. (References in the text suggest the guide dates from 1982 or 1983.)

Above, ads for the fondly-remembered Blake Head Bookshop, since closed, and the Judges Lodgings, still there but looking rather different out front. Back then it appears to have had a curved lawn with a neat flowerbed around. Now it’s all paved and covered with tables and chairs.

York had some interesting independent shops, several of which I remember, but not clearly.

And The Willow, on Coney Street, where customers were still dining and dancing in the early 1980s, and indeed still are, but not for long apparently. The Willow is to close this month.

Having featured in an ad in the early 1970s guide, where we were encouraged to ‘wallow in the world of the Willow for a while’, it was by the 1980s ‘revered by press and public’. I’ve never been to the Willow. Perhaps I should, before it closes on 26 July.

Your memories and comments are welcome, dear readers. And if this page has left you with a nice warm glow of happy nostalgia please consider supporting this site. Thank you.

More information

Ads are from the York Official Guide and Miniguide, 6th edition, edited by A L Laishley and John Brown, designed by Jack Griffiths and Peter Turpin and printed by Ben Johnson & Co Ltd.

(If you were involved in the production of the guide or the artwork for the advertisements featured and haven’t been credited in the list above please add a comment or email me.)

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