York Railway history walk

11 ECHOES

Dave Tabron

York has been a hub of transport communications since the Romans established the city in AD71, linking it to an efficient road system and making use of its waterways. But until the railways were established in the early part of the nineteenth century, people could only travel as fast as their feet or a horse could take them. In the early eighteenth century, a stagecoach journey from York to London took 3 to 4 days, though by the end of the century innovations in road construction and coach design had shortened the journey-time to around 36 hours. This city walk links key places that are key to the Victorian changes that the railways brought to York

De Gray Rooms

A fine example of early Victorian architecture, the De Grey Rooms are built to a neo-classical design. The Rooms were paid for by public subscription in 1841-2 and were designed by the architect George Townsend Andrews. Famed for his work on George Hudson’s railway buildings, Andrews was one of the main architects of York railway station

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Lendil Post Office

Lendal has many interesting old buildings including the now closed Victorian Post Office. Judges' Lodgings lies on the north-east side of the street, while other listed buildings include the 19th-century Lendal House, and the terrace 13-23 Lendal, built in 1766. On the south-west side, 2 Lendal was built as a Congregational Chapel, built in 1816 by Pritchett and Watson. 8 Lendal was built in the 17th-century as Lendal House, although it was refronted in the 19th-century. 4A and 4B, behind it, are its former boat house and stable, and are incorporate a surviving part of the friary wall. The terrace at 10, 12 and 14 Lendal was built in 1714, while the former post office, and Lendal Cellars, down an alleyway, are all listed

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Lendal Bridge

In 1861, permission was obtained from Parliament for this new bridge to be built, and the Corporation of York requested Thomas Page to design it . His Gothic Revival bridge opened in 1863. Together with the attached tollhouses it is a Grade II listed building. Lendal Bridge links Station Road with Museum Street and thus York railway station with York Minster, and is part of York's Inner Ring Road.

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George Hudson street

George Hudson was an English railway financier and politician who, because he controlled a significant part of the railway network in the 1840s, became known as "The Railway King"—a title conferred on him by Sydney Smith in 1844.

Hudson played a significant role in linking London to Edinburgh by rail, carrying out the first major merging of railway companies (the Midland Railway), developing his home city of York into a major railway junction, and represented Sunderland in the House of Commons. Hudson's success was built on dubious financial practices and he frequently paid shareholders out of capital rather than money the company had earned.

Eventually in 1849, a series of enquiries launched by the railways he was chairman of, exposed his methods, although many leading the enquiries had benefited and approved of Hudson's methods when it suited them. Hudson fell a long way, becoming bankrupt, and after losing his Sunderland seat he was forced to live abroad to avoid arrest for debt, returning only when imprisonment for debt was abolished in 1870.

Hudson's name is associated with financial wrongdoing, although others were at least partially guilty of similar practices. He never named any of his co-conspirators, although many of them turned their backs on him when the bubble burst.

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the old station

The first York railway station was a temporary building on Queen Street outside the walls of the city. It was opened in 1839 by George Hudson's York and North Midland Railway and was the terminus of the original trunk route for trains to London, via Derby and Birmingham.

It was succeeded by what is now the old station, built at the junction of Toft Green, Tanner Row and Station Rise inside the city walls by the Y&NM's architect George Townsend Andrews in 1840. It opened on 4 January 1841. Andrews also designed the neo-Tudor arch where the walls were breached to allow trains to access the station.

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The Railway Headquarters

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The Lutyens memorial

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Statue of George Leeman

Born in York in 1809, articled to a York solicitor, Leeman established a very successful legal practice in 1835. An Alderman of the city for 28 years he was elected Lord Mayor on three occasions and was a Member of Parliament for York between 1865 and 1880. In these roles he was a staunch defender of Yorks’ antiquities and pushed through the restoration of much of the city walls.

Outside York he was a prime mover in the development in the 1860’s of iron ore mining in Rosedale to supply the Teeside steel works. At national level he was Chairman of the Railway Association of Great Britain and in 1875 at Darlington presided over the celebrations of the first fifty years of railways.

His contributions to the development of York were appropriately recognised in the statue of him carved by the York sculptor GW Milburn and paid for by public subscription.

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