York’s a quirky old city that keeps on surprising, isn’t it?
Who, for example, knew that we’ve the oldest railway water tank in the world, or that there’s a Second World War public air-raid shelter in a shop’s basement on Spurriergate?
These two unusual items of heritage came to light in recent planning applications. But their potential fate – one to be repaired, the other demolished – prompts us to think why some of our more peculiar types of heritage are at risk.
But first, that water tank… It’s to the rear of the Railway Institute buildings, just off Queen Street. The tank was built in 1839 by the Walker Foundry of Walmgate for the York & North Midland Railway Company. It served the city’s earliest, temporary railway station while a more permanent, grander station was erected where the council’s West Offices now stands.
It’s amazing that the water tank has survived to this day; although Grade II listed in 1997, it has served no practical railway function for nearly half a century.
The air-raid shelter on Spurriergate is also in a Grade II listed building, although not mentioned in the listed description.
While York had many public air-raid shelters in city-centre commercial basements, these have been cleared since the Second World War and returned to business use.
For some, the Spurriergate air-raid shelter is an as important piece of heritage as, say, the fancy 1840s building above it. It’s a rare and evocative historic structure that gives us a tangible feeling – admittedly a terrifying one – of what the York ‘Blitz’ experience was like. Imagine sitting cramped alongside strangers in the near dark as menacing men in their bomber planes in the sky above aim to destroy you and your city.
God forbid we ever must hide once more from dangers in the sky. If we did, however, we’d no doubt want to use something a bit more robust, considerably more modern, and accessible than a Second World War basement air-raid shelter!
And in many ways, this may be why the Spurriergate shelter comes to be demolished. What practical, alternative purpose does it hold? Is it significant enough to outweigh the property owner’s understandable desire to use their basement for retail?
The future of the water tank building looks far rosier. The Station Gateway scheme is set to provide a loop road around the Railway Institute buildings and the proposals are for the water tank to be converted as York Railway Institute Band’s practice room. While no longer used for filling steam locomotives with water, the building will at least still have a railway connection in housing the band. (Besides, how charming it’ll be to pass the world’s oldest water tank and hear a booming brass band in rehearsal!).
The message seems to be that there’s a real risk to heritage if there’s little scope for adapting it for new use. We might like to think our heritage is protected because of lofty ideals of it being culturally important to us. And yet, there’s an economic viability side of heritage protection too, and this can sit awkwardly with such principles.
A historic building can readily be converted as, say, a hotel (The Grand), residential (the former Terry’s factory), or commercial space (The Guildhall). But quirkier heritage such as bomb shelters or the historic former-Theatre Royal arches on Fulford Road offer little practical conversion opportunity. It’s a great shame, as our quirkier heritage is often what captures the public imagination the most, offering the most interesting and memorable stories.
Indeed, some of what we now cherish as the city’s key historic assets have themselves been at risk of loss in the past due to difficulty in adapting for new purposes. The City Walls were at serious risk of demolition in the 19th century when the physical defence of the city was no longer required. Similarly, Clifford’s Tower fell out of use as a fortification by the 17th century, and in the next century was essentially a giant crumbling garden folly.
This isn’t to say that an air-raid shelter is as important an object of heritage as Clifford’s Tower. But it does prompt us to recognise that the heritage we see as important today might not be so tomorrow, and vice versa, and that it’s especially at risk if it has no practical, adaptable – and dare we say it – commercial use.
Duncan Marks, Planning & Heritage Manager at the York Civic Trust