Here’s a photo of their old place, taken last month, before the building was emptied.

I walk past often on my way into town, and sometimes cast a glance down from the pavement level to the basement offices. They always looked quite cluttered and kind of homely. Or maybe just reminded me of my home, as they too had to prop open their old sash windows. In their case with an empty washing up bowl, I noticed, on one occasion.

It wasn’t only the windows needing attention. The whole place looks a mess. What could look so splendid – a stuccoed curving 1830s terrace – is a mucky-looking dump with green patches near its drainpipes, bits of stone crumbling and weeds growing from its balcony.

Plenty of character though. Including this character, recognisable to most as Wallace of Wallace & Gromit fame, positioned at the window, peering out, apparently desperate to escape. Windows covered in grime, but just visible behind him what looks like a row of rubber plants. No doubt dusty too, as they invariably are.

This place has certainly seen better days. It was once quite posh. And will be again. Though it will take a long time to restore to its former glory, to remove the marks left behind by decades of office workers adding their own personalised touches, like the window sticker attached to this basement window. BBC Radio York: ‘Supporting York City at Wembley’. Like everything else here, a bit faded now.

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Following on from up the banks, here are some photos from around the other side. All can be enlarged. Partly for the benefit of the many regular visitors to this website who are now living many miles away (hello! to Paul in Canada) and maybe have had difficulty picturing the scene.

This is one end of the crescent of buildings, 1-9 St Leonard’s Place, which have been the main offices of City of York Council for many years. This is the end facing Exhibition Square. It has a small car parking area next to it. It’s a very handsome entrance, looking somewhat dilapidated at present, with weeds flourishing in its apparently crumbling stonework.

In front of it is the bit of Roman wall which always has a nice display of bedding plants in front of it. A rather odd combination, I’ve always thought, but at least it draws the attention to the rather stranded Roman remnant.

From a slightly wider angle, and moving a bit to the right, we can see the line of the old Roman wall continuing along behind St Leonard’s Place, between it and King’s Manor (which is visible on the right). Seeing it lined up like this makes it clearer what the walls were like, the line they used to take, before this part was demolished in order to create St Leonard’s Place.

And moving in a bit, up there on the mound, the railings are visible to the left of the wall. I was standing just on the other side of them when I took the photos on Up the banks.

There is quite a lot of space on this side, and it looks like there’s enough space to put in a nice wide wheelchair-friendly path, on a gentle slope, up to the top of that banked area, with those railings removed. This strikes me as the most attractive and important aspect of any ‘opening up’, as the area immediately around the Anglian Tower appears to be inaccessible at present to anyone using a wheelchair. This is of course true of much of York, particularly the narrow wall walks accessed by steps. This part of our famous defences could however be made accessible, at least from a viewing point at the top of the banks?

This may of course already be planned. Opening up the area has certainly been suggested, by Peter Goodchild, in a letter in response to the planning application relating to St Leonard’s Place.

It may depend on whether the planned hotel would be willing to lose a bit of its car-parking area, which I imagine it wouldn’t.

There’s also a fair bit of space in the lane next to King’s Manor, where it opens out.

I don’t have a strong opinion, just hope there’s some way to make the Anglian Tower on the other side of those railings look less sad and forlorn. Had another quick look today. There’s been a problem with graffiti, there’s a dead squirrel on the banks, and the whole place stinks of pee.

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As reported in The Press recently, plans have been submitted to turn this building into a hotel.

The once handsome crescent on St Leonard’s Place has for many years (decades?) been occupied by City of York Council. Conversion to a hotel seems a reasonable idea. Anyone who has looked at the building in recent years will know it has been looking shabby, though as I recall it isn’t that long since its frontage was cleaned and the railings painted. Great long lengths of railing, all adorned with gilded bits. Clearly you’d need a fair bit of cash just to maintain them, never mind the building behind them.

In the mid-19th century the Yorkshire Club occupied the central part of the crescent and a subscription library occupied the end facing onto Museum Street. Around 100 years ago the street directories show it was occupied mainly by various surgeons, and was numbered 1-9. The central part was then known as St Leonard’s Club.

In the autumn and winter of 1930 the author Nevil Shute lived at the St Leonard’s Club – as recorded in his autobiography Slide Rule. He recalls spending his evenings here writing – his ‘hobby’. You can imagine him perhaps in a big leather armchair, smoking a pipe probably, writing in a notebook with a nice fountain pen, staring out of the window.

It was while he was here that he found inspiration, and the name, for a new and exciting venture called Airspeed. Which soon afterwards set up its first premises, in what most York folk now call ‘that old bus garage on Piccadilly’.

St Leonard’s Place will no doubt be beautifully remodelled. It fits into the ‘pre-1850 and pretty’ category, the prevailing aesthetic. Whereas the other stories of this place – the bus garage/Airspeed building, and places like it – seem to have no chance of preservation, not in this city.

Links, more info

On this site:
Buildings – Council offices, St Leonard’s Place
and Buildings – Airspeed/Reynards Building, Piccadilly

Elsewhere on the web:
Slide Rule (preview) via Google Books, and also available to borrow at York Explore/York libraries.
Information on Nevil Shute’s time in York, from www.nevilshute.org

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