Architecture York: Twentieth Century Plus

By John Brooke Fieldhouse

You live in York UK, you’re thinking of paying a visit, or you just like buildings? Then this new work from John Brooke Fieldhouse is a must have!

It’s a guide book. But it’s completely different, it’s not what you’d expect from the city of Vikings, Romans, the medieval, the Civil War, the Georgians, and the Victorians. It’s about the twentieth century and later – right up to 2018. Its buildings – public and private - how they’re designed, engineered, lit, heated, ventilated...and not just buildings, there are 130 plus items, including bridges, a flood barrier, details like windows, seating, handrails, landscaping, paving, all the things we touch when we move through a city, the things that make us feel good or bad.

It’s 260 pages, 360 colour photographs, fifteen pages of indexes and an introduction, consisting of unsentimental and unvarnished answers by the author to over 30 questions on the book and York. Answering questions and always asking more. It’s not just the past, it’s all about the present and the future. We spend most of our lives in buildings, they are art, science, psychology and politics so it’s essential we all have our own view about them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jan 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803138398

John Brooke Fieldhouse

John Brooke Fieldhouse graduated from the Royal College of Art with a Masters in architecture. Established London & Yorkshire-based design practice BFA in 1990. He has lived for the last 11 years in York where he has led walks on 20th Century York for and on behalf of the York Civic Trust.

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Copyright © 2022 John Brooke Fieldhouse

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ISBN 978 1803138 398

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Edward Jones CBE, my personal tutor at the RCA, who opened the window for me onto architecture far wider than anyone

‘There is no building, no matter how nondescript, that we can’t contemplate chowing down on, and given the bulkiness of our favoured fayre we are, of necessity, gourmands rather than gourmets. True, we do flirt with the notion that just as there are starred Michelin restaurants, so, whether a building is listed or not may have a bearing upon its flavour…’

Will Self

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With thanks to the following in no particular order

Christopher Robinson, my cousin. It was his idea!

My late father, Raymond Fieldhouse, who co-wrote with John Barrett The Streets of Scarborough and whose style and approach to the science of archi-journalism instilled in me a passion for buildings of all kinds.

Peter Brown MBE, for early enthusiasm, encouragement, helpful information over the years, and for saying of the WIP, ‘This has got legs!’

Dr Peter Addyman CBE, for early interest, and suggesting an item on ‘retail infill’.

Catherine Croft, director of the UK Twentieth Century Society, for early interest and wisely advising me against starting the book with a picture of a garage.

Nigel Ingram, the chief mover and shaker for the creation of Derwenthorpe, for early interest and suggesting the inclusion of more housing items.

Graham Wilford, engineer and retired managing director of York Waterworks, for supplying technical and historical information on Siward’s Howe water tower, Severus water tower, and the Acomb Landing Pumping Station.

Dr Jonathan French, for suggesting an item on highways and flyovers.

Dr John Dent, for advising me on the St Mary’s abbey section of the historic walls, and supplying the photo of Leak & Thorp store roof. All other photographs were taken by the author.

Janet Dean Knight, for encouraging me out of ‘olde worlde’ paste and scrapbook and into the age of electronics.

York Explore, for kindly supplying me with a contemporaneous map showing the bombfall of the early morning of 29th April 1942, and allowing access to information on the Bowls Pavilion in the museum gardens.

Alan Wood & Partners, for information given on St Peter’s bridge; item 41.

John Heath, for bringing to my attention the epigraph.

Dr Jane Grenville OBE, for reuniting me with correspondence between Raymond Fieldhouse (my father) and Sir Nikolaus Pevsner.

Dr Duncan Marks, Heritage Planning Officer at York Civic Trust, for helping coordinate consent documents and keeping me up to date with latest developments.

Zack Wyse, for pointing out the elegance of the electricity substation in item 101.

Dr Alastair Oswald, for bringing my attention to the YouTube films; Landscape Investigation Parts 1 & 2, and the report in Landscapes journal entitled Commonplace Activities.

…And everybody else who has offered me words of encouragement in this uncertain endeavour.

I thank all of you who are going to point out to me omissions and errors. I have no doubt there will be several, so don’t hold back – hopefully there will be a second edition!

Nobody has anything to thank a virus for, but I do owe something to lockdown. Without its space I would not have learned sufficient new skills to complete this book. The later stages of the work were meant to be collaborative, but events prevented that.

CONSENTS

With particular thanks to the following for providing me with their permissions to be quoted on:

Intro and item 38: Dr Peter Addyman.

Item 42: Nick Beilby.

Intro: Peter Brown.

Item 75: Sir Ron Cooke.

Intro x 2: Catherine Croft.

Item 29: Dr John Dent.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Who, what, why, where, and when?

‘It’s a city of surprises.’

‘Isn’t any city?’

‘Yes, but York is never quite what you expect it to be. I was at school here – thought I knew it, found I didn’t… Decided I’d find out more and compose an architectural guide. The architectural historian Patrick Nuttgens was of the opinion that York’s buildings and streets are not only historically interesting, but also worth analysing and discussing,’ (Nuttgens, 1970).

‘Aren’t there plenty of guides already?’

‘They’re historical, which is what you’d expect when you come to York. This guide is the antidote to Clifford’s Tower¹ and the ‘medieval’ walls; it’s about modern design, predominantly of the twentieth century. Not just building exteriors; there’re interiors, their materials, how buildings are lit, ventilated, and heated. There’s engineering – such as bridges, water towers, a flood barrier, and street furniture – paving, metalwork, seats, and benches. There are examples of landscaping.’

‘But do people really come to York to see the twentieth century?’

‘The UK Twentieth Century Society has been on trips here, and its director seemed to be very positive about this publication. There are

130 items in this work and of that, fifty-one are to be found within the city walls, thirty-three in the outer city (Knavesmire, Haxby Road…). Sixteen of them are in the suburbs and outlying areas (Acomb, Clifton…), thirty in the villages (New Earswick, Heslington, university campuses…). Everything is within the outer ring road, no items beyond are included, with one only exception, the ‘twirly’ concrete footbridge at Strensall (item 90). You’ll see why we’ve gone three miles outside our exclusion zone when you have a look at it.’

‘What do you mean by twentieth century?’

‘One of the earliest items is Walter Brierley’s primary school in Scarcroft Road (item 17), which was built in 1896, though some items, such as the Enclosed Green Spaces (item 37), are medieval. The most recent items are the Hiscox Building (item 31) and the 2015 intervention into the 1879 City Art Gallery (item 29). The twentieth and twenty-first centuries are just another layer; Bronze Age, Viking, Roman, Anglo Saxon, Medieval, Civil War, Georgian, and Victorian. Twentieth-century architecture in York is frequently overlooked. To put this point into a musical context, it’s rather like a lover of classical music missing out the twentieth century, or being familiar with Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, but knowing nothing about Berg, Boulez, or Britten. In other words, only half the story.

‘York is a palimpsest – that’s a site where an original building has been built on top of, or where some of its previous parts have been subtracted while new ones have been added. One of the best illustrations of this phenomenon is in the Museum Gardens, where the abbey of St Mary’s has later medieval additions, on top of which has been built a nineteenth-century brick building, which abuts a 1964 building, which in turn has been built on top of a medieval undercroft. Both structures are adjacent to a 1912 reinforced concrete extension to the 1840 Yorkshire Museum (item 4), which was constructed on top of the south transept of the medieval abbey… if I’m making myself clear!

‘Each of those layers has made a different contribution to the fabric of the city. Imagine, for instance, if it hadn’t been the Romans or the Vikings who got here first, that the medieval cathedral builders had been first on the scene, and that there were no remains of a Roman fort or temple to build on top of. Where would they have built the Minster? They would have put it on Mill Mount, Garrow Hill, or Bishophill – rumoured to be the site of the first Anglo Saxon minster. Imagine that extra hundred or so feet? The Glory of God would have been visible, from as far away as Doncaster.’

‘What does a building have to do in order to appear in this directory?’

‘…Be good, bad, unusual, but essentially interesting. Broadly speaking it’s the impact of what it looks like, but what’s ultimately important is the effect it has on people’s lives. For instance, the Odeon Cinema (item 13) is an obvious choice because it’s an outstanding example of its period, and because of the craftsmanship of its brickwork, while the Central Hall at the university (item 1) is an example of dynamic use of concrete. It also usually has to be something which speaks of – or anticipates – the Modern Movement, so fans of such buildings as The York Dispensary, in Duncombe Place, or Barclays Bank, in Parliament Street – interesting as they may be – will be disappointed because they are not listed. That’s because those buildings were styled by someone with a penchant for medievalism and don’t look forward to Modernism.

‘We try to avoid making judgements; let’s say we like to be informed, informative, but not pedantic, and sometimes even just a little quirky. I admit, it’s not always possible not to be judgemental; occasionally we do more than analyse and evaluate. What good book doesn’t have some slant? There’s something else – Grayson Perry in his 2013 Reith lecture put his finger on something intriguing: that art (include architecture) has become so slick. Technology has enabled people to produce and do almost anything, that conventional skill or ‘cleverness’ is no longer meaningful as a measure of merit, the only way the world can judge a work of art is by its honesty, its integrity,’ (Perry, 2013).

‘The city was bombed in 1942?’

‘The main air raid took place in the early hours of 29th April. Eighty aircraft attacked the city in a raid which lasted ninety minutes. It was part of what became known as the Baedeker Raids, Hitler’s so-called revenge for the Allied bombings of Lubeck and Rostock. Bath, Norwich, Canterbury, and Exeter were also bombed on different nights. Ninety-four York citizens were killed – or died as a result of injuries sustained during the attack, including five nuns at the Bar Convent. Several buildings featured here took direct hits from high-explosive bombs, including the Railway Station (items 47 and 63), Poppleton Road School (item 18), and St Martin’s – formerly St Martin-le-Grand – Church (item 82) was badly damaged by incendiary bombs.

‘An intriguing point is that although 9,500 buildings were damaged in the raids, unlike Coventry – which received a continental-style Blitzkrieg with 550 deaths,