The Industries of the River Foss: Yo26 series

By na and Timothy Wynn Werninck

This excellent e-book was started as a Geography project back in 1985. After a few years a paperback was initially produced on Amazon and now have taken this and added new additional information which was not available at the time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NA
• Release date: Jun 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223026136

Book preview

Contents

PART ONE

Oulston, Yearsley, Crayke, Marton in the Forest, Farlington, Yearsley, Stillington.

Foss System

PART TWO,

The Lower Reaches of the River.

Gasworks

Railways.

Other Industries 149. Central Government.

Monkbridge Construction Company.

Leethams Mill.

York Generating Station

York Gasworks Northern Electric. Telephone Exchange.

Walmgate Fossgate, Piccadilly,

FR Stubbs. 226. Castle Mills Bridge

St Georges Field

Redfern Glass

The Future of the Industry of the River.

Flooding

260 -267. References.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Michael Fife and my mother, Jillian Murphy, who helped me with the original text and now, sadly, is no longer with us. I would also like to thank Joy Cann and the staff of York Explore Centre. Finally, my thanks go to John Hampshire, the Deputy Chairman of the Foss Amenity Society, for giving me a renewed focus.

Introduction

On arriving in York in 1987 I felt I needed more qualifications and enrolled on a G.C.S.E. in Geography course. As part of the qualification, I had to research a geographical project. Being far away from mountains and quite far away from the coast, I stumbled across the River Foss. The project was successful and it was suggested the research would make a good book. There have been a few books written about the river, but due to tough economic times there has been nothing new since 1982 and even now the river continues to change.

Over the years, York City Council has had to clear areas of industrial wasteland and draw up a coherent plan of how the city and the river should look. One of the strengths of the river is its diversity and after much research for this book I felt that the industry along the river had been somewhat overlooked. The river still contributes both to the welfare of the city and the changes in the city. The river also acted, and in many ways still does act, as an economic barometer showing how the city was managing through its history. I have been inspired by A Walk around the Snickleways of York (Jones, 2004). In my opinion the River Foss deserves a quality, modern, dynamic book, which will hopefully promote the hard work of the many volunteers and establish what an asset the river is to the City of York.

What slowed up the development of the industries on the River Foss was its distance from York’s old industrial sites. Many potential sites for industry needed to be reclaimed from marshland. The industrial development of the river was further slowed by much of the river being on the on the edge of the city’s first markets. This book has been over 10 years in the making and needless to say, great changes have taken place. Where possible, very recent changes have been included but it is inevitable that in a city such as York, changes are continuous and I have not always been able to document these, for which I apologise.

So, how does this book differ from what has gone before. Well, the finding of new records about the industries in the river adds interest to what is already an excellent book. There were many industries in the river and was easy to miss out or cut short the details of the industries. It was then difficult not to mention everything else as well.

In the first edition the book was forming into a walking guide and finally arrived at looking at just industry. For some reason decided to photograph the industries now that have disappeared that are now archival

There has always been a problem with accessing part of the river and this is probably down to length of it and was left to the Foss Society keeping open the public rights of way and repairing the banks.

Back in the day decided to try and cycle the length of the river and this was difficult as paths were closed off. I also tried to see what it was like to catch a bus and look at parts of the river to places like Easingwold and found the upper parts of the river not as accessible as I would have thought.

For the Accessibility of the lower reaches of the Foss there is a free download done by the Waterways authority that shows the Footbridges and the major crossing points.

As industry declined items were sold off. In the case of the iconic Recklaw had to do much research from blogging to find it.

Where Tug boat Annie had passed at one time. Unlike York and the Foss. There were many other waterways and miles of canals to finally find the boat in Knottingley near Ferrybridge Power Station. I knew it existed as it was sold as a House boat and because of it needed to be registered by the Waterways society. A photo appears later in the Text.

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Early Industry in the Foss

The first record of Industry came from The Victorian County History and mentions that there was Anglo Danish commerce.  Just slightly before it In Roman Times page 323 a map of the Foss with 2 Roman Wharfs. This means the activity of trade and indirectly linked to the selling and buying of goods, produced by the original Industries of the Foss. There also in the text and not to be confused with the mention of the Foss Dyke and the way the city was trying to be linked to the other Cities of Nottingham and Hull.

The Wool Trade was very prosperous until 1480 and money from financed the Merchant Adventures trips to Russia, Mediterranean Sea and Middle East. Wool came from the wealthy monasteries of North Yorkshire.

Maps and records show that in medieval times, a large part of the lower reaches of the River Foss became a hunting area for royalty. The King’s Fishpond was created to provide fish for banquets and feed the staff of the castle. What you will see from the above map the extent of the Forest of Galtres. To travel through the Forest, it was best to pay for a guide. The wood from the Forest was used to build buildings such as the Merchant Adventurers. The Victorian County History mentions page (509) medieval records of the Kings Fishpond mentions that Carpenters carriage of Wood and the building of buildings was paid for by the Fish caught from the Kings Fishpond.

Clifford’s Tower.

The building of Clifford’s Tower began in 1245 and was completed in 1265. This further defined the role of the River Foss as protection for the early population of the city from potential invaders. Clifford’s Tower is now a well-known tourist attraction.  Improvements were made in 2017-2018, creating a new entrance and visitor centre. This is now complete and is run by English Heritage and offers excellent Panoramic views of the both the River Foss and the City. Inside the Tower the History of the Tower is outlined.

Clifford’s Tower.

During the summers of 2018/19 a ‘pop-up’ Globe Theatre was built in the Castle car park, to enable authentic performances of plays by William Shakespeare. Sadly, this annual event was not able to continue due to costs.

Going back to the thirteenth century, York was expanding, and the overspill population was now living where it could, especially along Walmgate, with people fighting for the only available building land on the banks of the River Foss.

By 1703 both the River Foss and the River Ouse were tidal and this meant that goods could be transported to the established markets. Francis Drake, the famous Georgian historian, decided as early as 1737 that the way forward was open up the river-to-river craft by getting rid of the mills. The River Ouse was tidal until 1757, this ending with the implementation of Naburn Lock. This demonstrated that rivers could be controlled and made it feasible to develop a water transport system. Entrepreneurs of the time only had to look for inspiration to the markets of the Vikings to see how they could still benefit the citizens of the county town (Nuttgens, 2002). In early Georgian times there was more concern that people use the new, grand buildings such as the Theatre Royal or attend the races and join the wealthy citizens parading on New Walk, as mentioned in Eighteenth Century York Culture, Space and Society (Royle et al, 2003).

By reading the original book it mentions that York was a thriving commercial