Andrew Morrison reveals the hidden history of this 1,000-year-old York green space by an iconic York landmark
York’s rich and long history would suggest that underneath every street and building there lie hidden layers of the city’s past.
But what about the city’s open green spaces, enjoyed by so many people, are they as fertile ground for evidence of the city’s history?
Many have survived mostly unscathed by development. The strays of York – the green wedges that provide a connection between the centre and the city’s outer reaches have remained reasonably untouched for 2000 years.
The green ramparts that lap the city’s medieval walls likewise have been mostly undeveloped.
Dean’s Park may hide a bishop’s palace and Museum Gardens holds the remains of one of the richest and most powerful monasteries that existed in Medieval England, but what about the numerous small patches of green space that we sometimes perhaps do not think about or even notice. What might lie beneath their grassy surface?
Take for instance the grassy knoll that lies beneath the bright yellow Biles Bean sign, restored in 2012 by York Civic Trust. Does anyone pay any attention to it?
The site is split into two by a single brick wall. On one side is a raised platform crossed by a footpath and on the other is an uneven depression surrounded by gravestones.
In the 12th century, a small parish church dedicated to St Maurice was built on the site, on what is now the corner of Monkgate and Lord Mayors Walk.
St Maurice was, according to a 5th century author, serving in a Roman legion made up entirely of Christians, recruited from Thebes in Egypt.
The legion was ordered to what is now Switzerland by the Emperor Maximian.
Their task was to help quash a revolt of local Christians. On account of their faith, the legion refused to fight against fellow Christians. The emperor had the legion ‘decimated’ – 1 in 10 soldiers killed as a punishment. They still refused to fight and eventually the emperor in retribution has the entire legion slaughtered.
The legend of St Maurice inspired many dedications across Europe including perhaps the most famous – the now ski resort of St Moritz in Switzerland. York’s church to St Maurice did not fare as well. It was in a state of disrepair some 300 years after its foundation. Repaired piecemeal, it was eventually replaced by a much larger Victorian Church in 1878. The local congregation could not support the church and within 90 years it was demolished in 1967 – the last to be demolished in York. The last remnants of the church were incorporated into the building of St James the Deacon in the west of York.
On the other side of the dividing brick wall the neighbouring piece of level land was once home to first a terrace of five houses and their backyards fronting onto Lord Mayor’s Walk and then three larger post-second world war homes – all now demolished.
That such a small patch of grass has nearly a 1000-year history should be of no surprise to York. Though today the site perhaps feels somewhat under-appreciated and under-used. Dominated by the proximity of the busy junction of Lord Mayors Walk, Monkgate and the appropriately named St Maurice’s Road it is not really a place for relaxation and enjoyment. But could it be?
Sitting directly across Lord Mayors Walk from the city wall and its rampart is there an opportunity to turn this corner into something different? Perhaps a pocket garden that could provide a respite after a busy day in the city centre, a place to sit before beginning a journey home from the neighbouring St John’s Car Park, somewhere that local residents could garden and provide some enhanced habitats for nature.
York’s city centre is a warren of narrow streets with small spaces often locked in between them which have no pressing purpose today, but all have a very long history of use and change. Could these spaces like Monkgate Green – once home to St Maurice’s Church provide the city centre with opportunities to create a network of ‘pocket parks’ – benefitting city centre residents, visitors, workers and nature.
Where houses and a church once stood could new life be brought back to continue the 1000-year process of change?