From
the 1820s onwards, considerable redevelopment in the area occurred, with the construction
of streets such as Carmelite Street, Garden Place, Hiram Place, Wesley Place, Rushby
Place and Dundas Street. The Ordnance Survey map of 1852 shows the site to be heavily
built up, generally with what appears to be terraced houses and yards. The Stonebow
had yet to be constructed, and so street layout differed considerably to today. Stonebow
Lane is shown as Stonebow Buildings. Palmer Lane continued further east than it does
today, and large properties front onto the street, with extensive gardens running
to the river. A large part of the southern area of the site is taken up by the Union
Gas Works, located south of Palmer Lane and east of Hungate. A Scotch Brewery is
also marked on Hungate.
Overcrowding caused problems in York during the nineteenth century. Morris points out that 'during the nineteenth century, a population of around 3,000 was contained within the Parish (St Saviours) making it the second most densely populated parish in the city after the Parish of St Margaret's in Walmgate...' (Morris,1999, 3).
The creation of the strays, attached to the bars of Bootham, Monkgate, Walmgate and Micklegate, restricted the natural growth of the city, despite which the number of houses in the Hungate area were mostly back-to-back or courtyard developments, and the area degenerated into one of the worst slums in York. This was attested, among other things, by the need to send out missionaries. One of the most important missions established in the city was the Hungate Mission which was run from the former Wesleyan Schoolroom in Garden Place (Nuttgens et al, 2001, 208). The Poor Law Guardians visited the area in 1859, and the area was said to house many of the poor and industrious classes of York, although some prominent citizens still remained in the area, including John Bellerby, owner of the saw mill and William Coupland who was an 'owner of houses' (Morris, 1999, 7).
A 1980 survey of sanitary conditions in the area describes dark, damp houses, disease and overcrowding, in an area where 'light and ventilation' were obscured by the towering mill buildings that dominated the streets. Water was a particular problem with the main water supply coming partly from wells and partly from the river Ouse. 'All but 1500 families were dependent on water carriers and wells for their water - the whole of the eastern part which drained into the Foss suffered from the fact that the river was kept at 7 ft above its natural level by the lock at the confluence with the Ouse. Houses and courts off Walmgate and Hungate in effect had stagnant open sewers at their doors' (Nuttgens et al, 2001, 208). Prostitution was also a major problem in the area. In the 1860s Hungate became the main centre 'for this unhealthy activity' which was facilitated by the street layout which allowed prostitutes and their clients to 'slip from a bustling street to a quiet dark alleyway in seconds (Morris, 1999, 9).
With this kind of environment, disease was almost inevitable, and outbreaks of typhoid and cholera were not uncommon. In 1884 there was an outbreak of typhoid fever in various parts of the city but with slum areas being worse off. 'In the Walmgate district there are three centres [of outbreaks], one in Hungate including 44 cases...' (York Medical Officer of Health Report, 1884, 11). The medical officer at the time, Dr North, describes Hungate (District no 4) thus:
'this is a poor district, lying low. The inhabitants are for the most part poor persons, labourers and others of the humbler class of working men. There are many associated privies and water closets in the district. Some back-to-back houses; many courts and yards. There are no tenement houses and no common lodging houses. The locality is damp and the general ventilation of the area is not good. There is less cleanliness and less comfort than in any of the other districts and more evidence of poverty' (York Medical Officer of Health Report, 1884, 15).
However, it was not the general condition of the slum areas of York which caused the major outbreak of typhoid fever in 1884. The medical officer, Dr North, says: '...I do not think the recent outbreak was caused by mere surface pollution, however much it aided its propagation. What other probable cause remains? The condition of the sewers' (York Medical Officer of Health Report, 1884, 22).
By this time the state of the sewage system in York had become a major problem. In 1844, a report was undertaken by T Laycock entitled 'Report on the State of York' as part of the Health of Towns Commission. Laycock describes the extremely poor state of sanitary conditions in the Hungate area: 'In St John's Place, Haver Lane during wet weather, the privies have to be emptied by buckets into the open channel in the middle of the street' (Laycock, 1844). In another report, in 1897, Mr J Mensergh also commented on the state of the drains. He comments that 'the present state of the drains...fully bears out the description given in Mr Atkinson's Report, those sewers that are still in use are the worst in the city and should at as early a date as practicable be taken up and sewers of a more modern description constructed' (Mensergh, 1897). The problem became so bad that a series of laws were passed to try to clean up the city's drains. One such was the York Drainage and Sanitary Improvement Act of 1853.
In the late nineteenth century industry came to dominate parts of the site, including the establishment of the York Union Gas works, Leetham's Mills, Bellarby's Saw Mill, Adams Hydraulics, a steam laundry and a domestic hot water systems manufacturer as well as a multitude of smaller workshops such as 'leather works, gut scrapers and slaughter houses which stood side by side with the houses...' (Morris, 1999, 14).
A reference in the Evelyn Collection describes the 'Harwood and Dale Iron Foundry' on the Foss, Hungate dated 1828 (Evelyn Coll. F1932) although the York Trade Directory for that year states this business as being situated at 22 High Ousegate. The Baines Directory of 1822 lists 'Hopwood and Harwood Iron founders, Hungate'. The City Iron and Brass foundry is also known to have been situated at the top of Hungate in 1852.
On 17th May, 1836, a meeting was held at the Merchant's Hall, resulting in the creation of the York Union Gas Company, established in competition with the York Gas Light Company (est. 1822). A week later, the directors were elected and in addition to the chairman, Robert Cattle, and deputy Chairman, Charles S Elsley, included such figures as George Hudson and Thomas Pickersgill (York Gas Company, 1924, 14). In July, 1836, land was purchased on Hungate , adjacent to the Foss, and construction of the works began.
On January 26, 1837, the Company was legally established by a Deed of Settlement, listing the 153 shareholders. Gas supply commenced on October 1, 1837. The York Union Gas Works are depicted on a nineteenth century drawing, from the Foss, showing structures and a single large chimney corresponding to the Ordnance Survey map of 1852.
As demand for gas increased, competition between the rival companies was fierce, leading to a meeting on 19th July, 1844, where it was decided to amalgamate the two companies to form the York Gas Company (York Gas Company, 1924, 16). Works continued on both the Hungate and Monkbridge premises until expansion of the latter in 1847 meant that all the work could be transferred to a single site. The Hungate works were closed from January 26, 1850 and the plant dismantled. The Retort House chimney remained standing and in use until at least the 1920s, forming part of Bellerby's Saw Mill, depicted on plans of 1851 (YCL) and possibly visible behind mill buildings on Nathaniel Whittock's Birds-Eye View of York (1858 in Murray, 1988).
An auction of the May 22, 1850 sold the lands owned by the Gas works off in plots. Most of the land became Bellerby's Saw Mill, and a new street was constructed across part of the site. A small plot adjacent to this street and to Hungate became part of Leetham's Flour Mills, established to the west about the same time. The plans of the mill buildings, the street and a basic outline of the saw mill are shown on a plan of February, 1851 (YCL).
The trade directory of 1881 includes Henry Leetham, miller and corn merchant, on Carmelite Street. Henry Leetham had purchased land on Hungate in 1850 and it quickly expanded.
A plan of 1851 survives, showing the plan of mill buildings to the east of Hungate. The mill works are shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1889, occupying a small area north-west of the junction of Rushby Place and Hungate, and a large area west of the Gas Works site, which had become the Hungate Saw Mills. W G Plenty was commissioned to build an office in 1884, warehouses in 1885 and 1889 and a boiler house/coal bunker in 1890.
Nuttgens states that 'a real advance was made when he [Leetham] introduced steel rollers for milling the corn - whereas in 1891 fewer than a hundred workers in milling were recorded on the census by 1911 there were around six hundred...and in 1895-6 Leetham built at Wormald's Cut a new warehouse...linked to the Hungate Mill by Bridges over the Foss' (Nuttgens et al, 2001, 262). In 1888 Henry Leetham made an agreement with the Corporation, and Castle Mills lock was rebuilt, and the river improved to the Hungate Mills, enabling the manufacturers to take full advantage of the Foss as a transport route, in addition to Railway lines to Layerthorpe.
The 1909 Ordnance Survey map shows that the Anglo-Hungarian Flour Mills had expanded north along Hungate, with circular structures on the riverside, possible silos for storage of grain. The structure appears to extend across the Foss, supported by Bacon's map of c.1910, which labels structures on the opposite site of the Foss also as flour mills. The mills closed in 1930 and were partly gutted by fire during their dismantling in 1931.
Although the Hungate area had been 'one of the main slum districts in York' (Rowntree, 1901, 5), a concerted effort was made in the early twentieth century to improve these conditions. In the 1930s the Hungate area was cleared of slums. A map of 1933 (YCA Acc 191/PH600/10842) shows details of the Compulsory Purchase Order of 1936, detailing properties to be cleared.
The 1937 map shows some clearance in the area and the complete clearance is shown by the 1963 Ordnance Survey map where none of the terraced houses survive and are replaced by warehouses. The inhabitants of the cleared houses were moved to new estates in Tang Hall. Photographic records of some of the terraced houses, workshops and yards survive (YCA, Acc 157 & 280).
Two reports undertaken by Seebohm Rowntree, the first in 1899 and the second in 1941 shows the improvements that were made during those forty years. In the period of time between the two reports, Rowntree calculated that the proportion of the working class population living in abject poverty had been reduced by more than half' (Rowntree, 1941), the figure in 1899 being 15.46% of the working class of York living in primary poverty and this figure being 6.8% in 1936. Rowntree suggests that the standard of living available to workers in 1936 would have been about 30% higher than it was in 1899, this change being caused partly by the clearing of the slums, mentioned above, and partly by 'reduction in the size of families, increase in real wages and a growth in social services' (Rowntree, 1941, 463).
The standard of health was also much improved in the years between the two reports. 'The drainage of the city, which was a cause of much ill-health in 1899 is now satisfactory, the 6,418 midden privies are gone and whereas in 1899 the entire staff of the City's health department consisted only of 9, in 1936 it consisted of ...over 50' (Rowntree, 1941, 465). A major change to the layout of the larger area occurred in 1955 with the construction of modern Stonebow. The new road cut through the Hay and Wool Markets and a series of buildings were demolished in the process, including the Woolpack Public House (YAT, 1995, 3). Properties south of the Haymarket and St Saviourgate were demolished. By 1963, the Telephone Exchange had replaced Wesley Place, and a single warehouse occupies land previously known as Lower Wesley Place. Most of the smaller properties in the area had been replaced by larger warehouses, many of which appear similar to those existing today.
