We’re in the Bootham area again, as I ended up wandering through the grounds of Bootham Park hospital. While passing the chapel in the grounds I remembered I’d never followed up on Silvanus’s special door.

Last year I included a page on the lost street of Union Terrace. It’s not completely lost – there’s a bit of it left – but it was at one time a long street, as can be imagined from the car park which now occupies the site of most of it.

Between the car park and the grounds of Bootham Park Hospital is a boundary wall, which presumably used to mark the end of the backyards of the demolished houses.

Silvanus Thompson once lived on Union Terrace, on the other side of this wall. The name might not mean much to most readers, but his son, Silvanus Phillips Thompson, is commemorated in a plaque on the front of Bootham School, not far away, and must have born here in Union Terrace.

The front of Bootham School, as its name suggests, is on the street of Bootham itself, but its grounds are large, and stretch back to near the hospital chapel, and the back of Union Terrace.

Silvanus Thompson was a teacher at Bootham School, and he and his wife took a house at 43 Union Terrace, and later also occupied number 45. It was presumably rather irritating to have to walk all the way round to go to work – onto Clarence Street, up Gillygate, onto Bootham – when he could see the playing fields of Bootham School from his back windows. So Silvanus got permission to make a shortcut. A document from 1867 in the Borthwick’s archives records that the committee of ‘York Lunatic Asylum’ (Bootham Park Hospital) grants permission for him ‘to break out and use a doorway through the wall of garden behind his house in Union Terrace on condition of payment of 1s per year, and to restore wall to original condition on cessation of occupancy.’

I was wandering by this evening, remembered this, and thought I’d have a quick look to see if there was any indication where the doorway had been.

No visible trace in the brickwork. But there were a couple of bits of graffiti. Including – amusingly, weirdly – a door. A 21st century painted echo of Silvanus’s door.

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July 2011

[Update: the plans to sell the coach park, referred to on this page, have since been abandoned. Full story here.]

The recent calls to ‘Save Union Terrace Car Park’ ring a little hollow for the people who wanted to save Union Terrace when it was a street of family homes. These smaller voices – expressed in letters to the local paper (see links below) – have perhaps been lost in the tumult.

In the 1970s a new ‘improved’ inner ring road was planned, and areas were cleared in preparation for it, including at the bottom of Marygate, and here at Union Terrace (see note, bottom of page).

As a result of the Clearance Area orders and Compulsory Purchase Orders many homeowners had to clear off, and find homes elsewhere. The local authority served notice that they were going to buy certain properties, they then assessed how much each one was worth, paid the owners, then demolished whole streets. Or in this case, nearly the whole street.

Forty years on we’re struggling to find enough land to build housing on, and the housing we’re building is often of poor quality. Judging by the bit of the street of Union Terrace which wasn’t demolished, next to the coach park, the houses here were substantial and handsome. But they were smashed to bits because in the 60s/70s that seemed the right thing to do.

Forty years on people still write to the local paper about the impact of the council’s decision, or their grandchildren write on their behalf. The sense of injustice and upset remains, after all these decades.

Having created a car park in the area cleared for a ring road, the more recent plan is to sell it to the nearby university, to be built on again. This is clearly another bonkers idea. Many local businesses and organisations depend on the car and coach park, which brings visitors to this side of the city.

Judging by past history whatever is built here they’ll probably want to demolish again a few decades on, having caused havoc in the meantime to all those affected.

After this area was knocked about by demolition, the locals adapted to the situation, making the best of it, as residents who care about a place always do.

Gillygate has just built itself up again after the ‘blight’ caused by the ring road plans. It took decades. The combination of many individual efforts by ordinary people eventually gives a place back its soul, makes it thrive. Then councils come in with mad schemes, hack it all about, and undo all the progress.

The 1852 plan of York shows the old street of Union Terrace (then quite new) in some detail, with individual houses marked. The plan opens centred on the Minster. Pan northwards/up and west/left a bit and you’ll see Union Terrace and Clarence Street as they were then.

The lost homes of Union Terrace are a reminder of past mistakes, made by people who at the time thought that they were doing the right thing. Councillors, your predecessors caused enough destruction around here, and the community adapted to having a car park instead of a street. Might be best now to leave it as a car park?

More information/links

Anger over plan to sell Union Terrace car park – ‘Was it all for nothing?’

Our homes were lost for no reason – ‘… ironic that people are campaigning to save a car park which only came to be because the council had an area of unused wasteland on its hands after an insane plan for a ring road was defeated.’

The ArcLight centre relocated to Union Terrace some years ago, using part of the car park area. The relocation plans in 2006 provoked a letter to the local press which first drew my attention to the hurt felt by many who used to live in this street: ‘even after 35 years the sense of injustice still rankles’.

If you lived in Union Terrace or were active in protests against the demolition of this street, I’d like to hear from you – please add a comment.

Updates

Since this page was compiled, the plans to sell part of the Union Terrace car and coach park have been abandoned. Not because the City of York Council saw sense, but because St John’s did, and withdrew their offer. See the BBC website – Union Terrace coach park: University withdraws offer – for more.

See also: a 19th century resident of this street and my search for his door ….

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