Woolpack House

Woolpack House was formerly a public house belonging to JW Cameron the brewery company. Known then simply as The Woolpack. When it ceased as a public house it became Woolpack House and the builders moved in converting it to a Doctor's Surgery for the Jorvic Medical Practice. Later in Novemeber 2014 they were joined by the Gillygate Medical Practice and became known as the Jorvic Gillygate Medical Practice.

The building is situated at the junction where Peaseholme Green becomes Stonebow and St. Saviour's Place.

Lift up your eyes 22

Black and white timbered frontage of Supasave in Fossgate, it is one of those bargain price shops for household goods. The shop is long and narrow and runs through from Fossgate to Stonebow where there is a back entrance at the top of Black Horse Passage.

All Saints Lantern Tower in background of St Saviourgate

In the background of St Saviourgate you can see the lantern tower of All Saints Pavement and the curve of the stonebow building. St Saviourgate runs parrallel to Peaseho;me green and Stonebow before joining York's shortest street Whip Ma Whop Ma Gate.

Calverts Carpets - Stonebow

This is a great little carpet warehouse where you can pick up reasonably priced end of roll pieces if you are willing to wait for the right piece to turn up for you. Although the building is similar in style to York's ugliest building which you can just see in the background it is softened slightly by the lower brick level which almost makes it appealing. Prior to Calverts taking the building on it was the the home of Pickles Newspaper wholesalers. Next door to it is building work going on where one of the modern timber structured buildings is being erected. I don't think I have seen any artists impression drawings of what is being erected but hope it is going to be better than the proposed council office over the road which from the artists impression is going to be a monstrosity to rival Stonebow House.

Is Spring Coming?

1 March 2008 and this ornamental cherry tree is in flower in Stonebow. These trees are probably the nicest feature of Stonebow which has little else to commend it with the ugly Stonebow House dominating the scene on the other side of the road with the string of bus stops that sometimes make navigatingthe footpath a difficult undertaking as people queuing for buses clog the pathway.

All Saints - Pavement

This view was taken from the roof car park of the ugliest building in York looking along Pavement to All Saints church the Dragoons chapel. On the right hand side is the rear entrance to Marks and Spencer. If you click on the photograph and then look at an enlargement of it in the Picasa web album you should be able to make out the sheep sign of the Golden Fleece on the right about a quarter of the way up the photograph.

Sightseeing Bus Stop - Stonebow

A good way for tourists to get an overview of York is to use the sightseeing buses. There are three companies operating in York. They are York Tour, York City Sightseeing and York Pullman City Tour. They all use open topped double decker buses and you buy a ticket and hop on and off at any of the bus stops around the city. The photo above is the stop in Stonebow where several routes have stops. You can just see the ugly concrete of the Stonebow building intruding into the left hand edge of the photo. I suppose that you could class Stonebow as an open air bus station although it doesn't serve any of the routes that head north out of the city.

Ugliest Building in York?

Ask anybody in York what they think is the ugliest building in the city and they will almost all reply "Stonebow". Many feel it is a boring concrete obelisk with no redeeming features. However, there are some out there who praise the fact that it has simple straight uncluttered lines. Don't count me in that group, although some of the buildings put up in the fifties and sixties are interesting in their design with fairly clean lines that do interest me like my old secondary school at Easingwold built in 1953. I am afraid that this building does nothing for me but cause irritation that it could have been allowed to become a blot on the landscape. It is to be hoped that the Hungate redevelopment just round the corner does not foist obscene buildings like this one on the people of York.