We’re going to start off this tour alongside the very oldest streets in South Bank. We’re at the top end of Ovington Terrace, outside one of the entrances to Millthorpe School.

As we look down Ovington Terrace there are four streets of small terraced houses leading off it. These appear on the <a href="https://maps.nls.uk/view/125637322#zoom=5&amp;lat=4674&amp;lon=9111&amp;layers=BT" rel="noopener" target="_blank">1892 OS map</a>, and apart from Southlands Road, this north west corner was the only part of South Bank developed for worker housing at that time, as they were built around 1881: Adelaide St, Argyle St, Windsor St and the south side of Philadelphia Terrace. These were bounded by Ovington Road/Terrace to the east, and Albemarle Terrace to the west.

But first we want to look behind us, to the north.

In the second half of the nineteenth century there were two very big houses in this area, mansions, perched on this ridge on the highest part of South Bank, with views around. It is slightly confusing as they were both named the same, after the local area around here.

If you look through the school gates, you will see the remnants of the first. Millthorpe School is based around Nunthorpe Court, a mansion built in 1856, designed by York’s Atkinson brothers, the firm founded by John Carr. It had an estate of over 33 acres, and extended as far as Bishopthorpe Rd, with an entrance from a driveway on Nunthorpe Avenue and a lodge built at the current junction of Bishopthorpe Rd and Southlands Rd, leading to a driveway up to the house from the east.&nbsp;

From 1886 for over 30 years it was the home of Colonel Richard Frederick Meysey-Thompson and his wife Charlotte. The Meysey-Thompsons were living at Nunthorpe Court during the first World War and the building suffered war damage, set on fire by three bombs hitting the roof and chimney stacks, and impassable chasms were left in the driveway.

The Meysey-Thompson’s son eventually sold the house to the Council, who opened Nunthorpe Court Secondary School for Boys in 1920. The school grew quickly, in 1927 a north-west wing was added as a hall/gymnasium, with another new&nbsp;hall and quadrangle in 1937.&nbsp;The start of the autumn term in 1939 was delayed because of the need to strengthen the cellars for air raid shelters. In the 1942 Baedeker air raid on York, most of the windows at the front of the old building were smashed, and a member of staff was killed.

The school became Nunthorpe Grammar School in 1950, and then Millthorpe School in 1985.

The second large house was Nunthorpe Hall, which is sadly no longer here. It was in the area behind you, where Coggan Close is now, but demolished over 40 years ago. It was designed and built in 1866/7 by local architect Herbert Fippard, for mining engineer Henry Johnson McCulloch.&nbsp; The Hall was on an elevated position overlooking the little Knavesmire, reached from a long driveway off Bishopthorpe Rd, where South Bank Avenue is now.

Sale details for the house describe ‘a handsome and commodious residence... overlooking Knavesmire, replete with every modern accessory of reception, domestic and culinary arrangement, together with Garden and Stable requirement’. Plans included provision for a game larder, a meat larder and a china closet at the rear of the ground floor behind the entrance hall. The gardens extended down to Albemarle Rd and bordered the entire length of Philadelphia Terrace. The carriage drive to Bishopthorpe Rd had a lodge and ‘tasteful’ entrance gates, opening into an avenue of chestnut, lime and sycamore trees, around 600 yards long.&nbsp;

A family of wealthy industrialists, the Lycett-Green’s, moved to York in 1888 to live at Nunthorpe Hall. During the First World War it was lent to the Red Cross by Sir Edward as a VAD Military Hospital, to receive men injured in the Battle of Loos in 1915. It had 50 beds at first, increasing to 76 beds, and was managed by Sir Edward’s daughter-in-law Ethel Lycett-Green. Even there the men were not safe, as on the night of 2/3 May 1916 two Zeppelin bombs set fire to the upper house and four fell in the garden, resulting in considerable damage and the evacuation of the hospital. All patients survived however, as they were on ground floor. By the time the hospital closed in April 1919, the staff had treated a total of 915 patients.

The Hall was eventually sold to John Hetherton in 1921 and converted into 16 flats. It was eventually demolished in 1977 and Coggan Close built on the area. A small lodge, built in the 1930's, still remains at the entrance to Coggan Close, where it adjoins Millthorpe School at Ovington Terrace.

We're now going to walk down to take a closer look at the terraced streets.

Two mansions

What sort of people were moving into these newly-built terraced streets of small houses? The 1881 census lists many skilled artisans and their families – machinists, engine fitters, railway clerks, porters and guards, carriage builders, boilermakers, blacksmiths, railway labourers. These would have had a secure wage from the new railway employers.

As soon as these streets began to fill with people then shops started to open to supply them with necessities, and these were the first wave of shops in our area. It’s not hard to spot which houses were shops, usually at the corners, with oblique shapes in the brickwork.

At No. 27 Adelaide St, down at the bottom end, next to the back alleyway, was butcher George Everitt. In the 1880s he cleaned out his shop every Saturday night so that it could be used as a Sunday School on Sunday mornings. This was so successful that it eventually moved into two houses in a neighbouring street, and services for adults began to be held there.&nbsp;At the same time a large Methodist church inside the city walls was looking to respond to the growing population just outside the walls, and Everitt’s Sunday school work, with money and personnel made available by the big church, resulted in the opening of Southlands Methodist Church in 1887.&nbsp;

The first shop in this area was on the top corner of Windsor St, in 1881, a grocer William Ernest, who lasted around twelve years there. &nbsp;This later became James Lonsdale, grocer and draper.&nbsp;

By 1895 there were several corner shops such as off-licences, butchers and provision grocers. Today none of these shops remain, only the South Bank Social Club is still trading.

The Club started in 1899, with the opening of the club in six houses in Argyle St. Their Cricket Club and an Angling Association was founded in 1900. In 1909 they extended into an adjoining cottage, and the club became the property of its members. It changed to the current address in 1953. In 1963 a seventh house was bought in Argyle Street, to allow a further extension.

In the 1990s when it was refurbished, the Club had about 800 members, and 100 lady members. Activities included outdoor bowls, indoor bowls, darts and ‘fives and threes’ teams, snooker, two football teams, two quiz teams and a walking section, a rifle range, and an extensive library.&nbsp;There was dancing on Saturday nights to live music, and bingo sessions, and every Sunday night there was live entertainment. Some show business celebrities have performed in the Club over the years: Paul Daniels, Paul Shane (Hi-Di-Hi), Bernie Clifton and Charlie Williams.&nbsp;

With cricket, the younger players at South Bank Cricket Club weren't getting a game, so they formed their own team, taking their name from this terrace. Nearly 100 years on, South Bank CC has long gone, while Ovington CC prospers.

In a new development Young Thugs was established at the Club in 2016, as a community platform for the York music scene. Based upstairs, they include artist management, recording studio and unusual events. They combine cutting edge digital recording with classic analogue equipment.

Houses for workers

If you stand on Albemarle Road, looking towards Brunswick St, look at the corners. On the left hand side there is still a corner shop, run by Harish and Bijal Patel, D &amp; K Stores. This shop has a long history, with over 100 years of trading. It was originally a grocer around 1905, and listed as a fruiterer in 1911, Arthur Rose, changing to Albert Sykes in 1922, then George Sykes from around 1953 until 1973. It became grocers, Todd's in 1974, and then went through a number of trades, GS Upholstery, Royce Harmer Art Studio, the Food Chain, and Bubbles in the 1990s, followed by D &amp; K Stores, who are still there. Harish and Bijal have now absorbed the former barber’s shop round the corner into their building and have refurbished the business.

The other corner is no longer a shop. There was a shop here in 1901, belonging to Susan Rose, a fancy draper from 1901 to 1905, then in 1913 a draper and milliner, Miss Elizabeth Gibson. In the 1920s the name changed to R Lemmon, who seems to have moved from being a newsagent in Queen Victoria St previously, possibly listed as a male partner of the milliner. &nbsp;In a complete change, by 1927 it was Irwin Richard Brown, baker and confectioner, and remained Brown’s Bakery until the early 1950s, when it became Parkinson’s Bakery, with Ellen Parkinson in charge. By 1967 it was Haxby’s, and then Pavlo's Bakery (supplier only). In the 1980s it had become Fred’s Bakery, who subsequently moved around to the corner of Albemarle Rd and Queen Victoria St. This shop closed in 1994.

Now we're going to walk along further, towards Fred's Bakery

Old shops

The photograph from around 100 years ago shows a tram coming along Queen Victoria St. The service to South Bank opened in 1913, with three electric trams running from the Station along Bishopthorpe Rd and up Balmoral Terrace and Queen Victoria Street, to turn at Albemarle Road. Powered from overhead cables, each blue and cream vehicle took up to 48 passengers on two floors – the top open to the elements. A wartime shortage of male staff led to the trams’ brakes being fitted with gearing, making them easier for women to operate. The trams ran till 1935, when they were replaced by buses.

Joan Jackman told us that on race day they used to be queuing on Queen Victoria Street ... they used to let children play on them on race days because they waited for all races to finish.

The tram service encouraged many shops along Queen Victoria St and Balmoral Terrace, with as many as thirty houses used as shops. Next time you walk along here see how many you can spot from the shadows in the bricks.

The Tram Terminus

When York confectionery firm Terry’s first expanded from their original shop in St Helen’s Square, they chose a riverside site in Clementhorpe, to house stocks of peel, used for candied peel. The riverside location was important, as all their supplies - sugar, cocoa, glucose, orange and lemon rinds in brine - arrived by steamer from Hull, along the Humber and the Ouse, together with coal. So twice a week the steam packet vessel would disgorge its cargo of sugar, cocoa and coal. 
 
By the 1920s however their expanding factory had outgrown its Clementhorpe site. They moved in 1926 to a purpose-built Art Deco style factory off Bishopthorpe Rd, alongside the York Racecourse. The factory was a landmark building, boasting a distinctive clock tower. Some of their most famous brands were created here: the Chocolate Apple in 1926, All Gold in 1930 and the Chocolate Orange a year later. 
 
During World War II, confectionery production was halted and the factory was taken over by F Hills and Sons of Manchester as a shadow factory, to manufacturer and repair aircraft propeller blades. In 1975, Terry's was bought by United Biscuits, who later sold their confectionery division to Kraft Foods in 1993. Sadly in 2004 the factory closure was announced, with production to be moved to other Kraft European factories. It ceased production in 2005.

The site has now been developed for residential use, with apartments, penthouse suites and terraced housing. The image shows the original master plan for the development.

In 2017 the original main office block, a Grade II listed building, opened as the Chocolate Works Care Village, created by Springfield Healthcare.

We’ll now head along Campleshon Road towards the church.

Terry's of York

To meet the needs of a rapidly growing population in South Bank, a Mission Chapel had been built in South Bank Avenue in 1900, which we saw earlier, as an outreach centre for St. Clement’s Church in Scarcroft Rd.

In 1922 land was bought near Campleshon Lane by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to build a church of St Chad, with additional land being conveyed in 1926. There was a series of fund-raising events staged to support the ‘Argles Memorial Church’, named after the long serving vicar of St Clements, Rev. Canon Argles, who had died in 1920. For example a bazaar had been held in the Assembly Rooms in York, which raised £1400.

Architectural plans were drawn up by the celebrated architect Walter Brierley in 1924, and building work started on the new church, to be officially named the Church of St. Chad on the Knavesmire. It opened in 1926, as a Chapel of Ease to St. Mary Bishophill Senior, at a cost of £10,300. The church is built in brick throughout and comprises a 'nave', originally intended as a chancel, of three bays and a Lady Chapel at the east end. The present structure represents only half the original plan, of which many features were left uncompleted, including the tower, due to Brierley's death. The Church is a Grade II listed building because of its innovative structural form.

In 1928 the parish of St. Chad was separated and constituted as a consolidated chapelry under southern St. Mary’s Bishophill.

In 1927 St Chad’s Greys Scouts were formed, with a Scout Band created in 1947 by Fred Weatherley and Bryan Jowsey. Plans were drawn up in 1964 to build the uncompleted west tower, which was finally opened in 1967, and in 1970 a new church hall was built alongside the west tower. Sadly in 2001 the Scouts hut was completely destroyed by fire

The Church is a Grade II Historic England listed building, a notable example of work by Walter Brierley.

Image: <a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2563107">"St Chad on the Knavesmire Parish Church - Campleshon Road''</a>&nbsp;by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/11162" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator" title="View profile" xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#">Betty Longbottom</a>&nbsp;is licensed under&nbsp;<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>&nbsp;/ crop and filters applied to the original

St. Chad's Church

South Bank Temporary School had opened in 1906 at the St. Clement's Mission Room in South Bank Avenue, and by 1911 South Bank Temporary Infants School opened in the premises of the Adult School in Balmoral Terrace. By 1914 there were 159 children enrolled in the two temporary schools, and a new, purpose-built school was much needed in the area, to serve its growing population, including children in Cherry Street and Scarcroft Schools waiting to transfer.

Designed by the Bolton architect J.T. Proffitt, the new Knavesmire Council School opened in here Campleshon Road in 1916, with a capacity of 800. Extensions, including a new wing, were added in 1931 to increase the accommodation by 160 places. In 1945 the school was split, into a primary school for infants and a secondary modern school for girls, as part of the new &nbsp;system under the 1944 Education Act. By 1963 construction began on a new secondary modern school near to Bustardthorpe, and this opened for girls in 1964, with boys entering in 1965. Local educational reforms led to its closure in 1985, and the building became the York College of Law in 1989, who eventually relocated to Leeds in 2014. Since then it has housed the York Campus of OneSchool Global UK, an independent educational trust.

In 2014 the final phase of the Primary School extensions in South Bank was completed by William Birch &amp; Co, including a canteen, new hall, and additional teaching spaces. In 2016 Knavesmire Primary School became part of South Bank Multi-Academy Trust.

We’re going to carry along walking as far as Kensington St.

Knavesmire Primary School

George Russell, who lived at 20 Kensington St in South Bank, was a jobbing gardener with an allotment at Bustardthorpe, which is south of here along the Bishopthorpe Road. He was inspired to start breeding better lupins in 1911 by the sight of a vase of lupins arranged by a Mrs Micklethwaite, one of his employers, at a house on The Mount. He noticed that her lupins were very poor and was convinced he could do better, so he embarked on a 20-year project to develop a new much improved strain.

He preferred natural pollination by bumble bees for hybridisation to vegetative propagation or hand pollination. At the end of each season he collected seed from the very best plants and sowed it. Any inferior plants were rigorously removed. He carried on until by the 1930s, people travelled from across the country to see the lupins blooming in his Bishopthorpe Rd plot. By the 1940s every lupin sold was a Russell lupin and by the age of 79 he was exhibiting at Chelsea. His sturdy plants became a feature of the post-war garden, and each packet of seeds was sealed with his picture as a sign of authenticity.

Image: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16349984@N07/42587738774">''George Russell''</a> by&nbsp;<a data-track="attributionNameClick" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16349984@N07/" title="Go to Keith Seabridge's photostream">Keith Seabridge</a>&nbsp;is licensed under&nbsp;<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC BY 2.0</a>

George Russell

Hiding from Zeppelins

You’ll notice that there is quite a curve at this junction, unlike the other street crossings. Can you guess why this is?

It’s a feature which the tram needed, to make it easier to travel in and out of Balmoral Terrace.

We’re going to take a look at one of the houses over the road, oppositve the surgery. Local records include a letter by Wilson Kirby, railway manager, who lived at Holme House, 230 Bishopthorpe Road, to daughter Nellie, on 3 May 1916.

He wrote ““The Zepp passed directly over our house then turned to the left over the canvas and across to Nunthorpe Hall where the wounded soldiers were. The first bombs were dropped there about half a minute or less after passing our house, which set the Hall on fire and all the patients had to be taken away by motor car.&nbsp; A good deal of damage was done to the Hall but it was not totally destroyed.”

“A Miss Chapman (one of our lady clerks) of Nunthorpe Avenue was killed and her mother had an arm blown off.&nbsp; A Mr and Mrs Avison in Price Street were killed and the house totally demolished.&nbsp; 3 houses were knocked down in Caroline Street and scores if not hundreds of houses seriously damaged roundabout there, thousands of windows being blown in.&nbsp; Nunthorpe Road caught it very severely, particularly about Kettlewells the butchers and right up to St Clement’s Church which had a few, perhaps 40, small panes broken.&nbsp; It is a proper wreck about there.”

Hiding from Zeppelins

We’re stopping here at Rectory Gardens. St. Clement's Church Rectory was here, a large house well away from the church, in fields to the south of York. Plans were drawn up by York architect Herbert Fippard in 1867 and contractors appointed in 1869. In 1871 Canon George Marsham Argles was appointed first Rector of the combined parish of St Mary Bishophill Senior with St. Clements and became the first occupant of the Rectory when it was completed in 1872. In 1919 Rev Canon Argles retired and was replaced by Rev. Gilbert David Barker. The Rectory was demolished in 1936 to make way for new houses, in a new cul-de-sac named Rectory Gardens.

Rectory Gardens

This has been an important trading corner for the area over the last 100 years, with a long history of corner shops. But it’s worth looking at the house on the left hand corner of South Bank Avenue. This avenue as originally the driveway leading all the way up and round to Nunthorpe Hall. The lodge here was a small gabled building, with pillars on the north side.&nbsp;A coachman, Charles Crane, was living there between 1885 and 1900, when it became vacant.

It was then used to house a newsagent’s shop from the early 1930s.

The Lodge was demolished around the late 1930s, but the newsagent remained in the house behind. The big house, Nunthorpe Hall, remained until 1977.

On the east side of the main road, where the Village Spice is now, was a grocer’s shop around 100 years ago. After the war it was T. W. Brown, with the Glen Park Bakery, which interestingly became the Glen Park Library in 1953, where you could borrow a book for a penny. In 1959 it became Swiers Butchers, with Ken Hodgson who took over in 1967. As well as meats they made their own burgers and sold tripe, and eventually added home-made pastries to their shop. Around it became the Bay of Bengal Indian Restaurant /Takeaway, and is now the Village Spice.

On the other side of butcher Terrace opposite is Millennium Food &amp; Wine, again a grocer’s from as early as 1909, with many different owenrs since then.&nbsp; People remember the shop run by Mr Hines. He also sold draught paraffin and draught vinegar, side by side.&nbsp; He would fill up these bottles and say, don’t get them mixed up!&nbsp; The whole place smelled of paraffin and vinegar.

Corner of South Bank Avenue

You should now be looking at the Cameron Walker Homes, also known as the Walker Barstow Homes and Cameron Walker Court.

Charles Cameron Walker was a member of the Cameron brewing family, who died in 1907. His almshouses were established in Bishopthorpe Road in 1909, and became a registered charity in 1912. There were twelve three-room dwellings in a two storied building designed by Walter Brierley and were described by Pevsner as ‘Tudor-style, red brick with stone details and mullioned windows’.

The almshouses were declared open to the poor of either sex living within 10 miles of York. The building had three doorways, each opening onto a hall with two flats on each of the two floors. The flats were built with a living room with a range and oven, and a separate bedroom. There was a narrow scullery with sink and cold water tap and a small gas ring and grill. The wash-house was in the garden and contained two coppers, two sinks, cold water taps and mangles. Each pair of flats shared a WC, but there were no baths installed when the house was built. Electric light, installed from the beginning, and water were provided free.

They are now known as Walker Barstow Homes. To qualify for housing as a beneficiary of the trust applicants must be an adult or an adult couple, living within a 10 mile radius of the centre of York and have limited financial means. It is also a condition that residents must be capable of independent living.

There was another almshouse in Caroline St in Clementhorpe, Barstow’s Hospital, and this was demolished in the 1960s. By 1972 the charity was merged with Cameron Walker Homes to become Walker Barstow Homes. A warden’s bungalow and two others for residents were added at this time. In 1980 1 Aldreth Grove was bought and converted into flats. Modernisation of the main block was carried out in 1982, which has added a bathroom to each dwelling. A communal lounge, known as the Barstow Lounge, was added in 1993, and in 1996 a house in Cameron Grove was purchased and converted into two more dwellings. The almshouses now houses nineteen residents, with a 24 hour warden call system.

The Cameron Walker Homes

There was a long period of temperance agitation in South Bank at the turn of the 20th century, led by Canon Argles of St Clement’s. He had arrived in the parish in 1871 and became an outspoken critic of drinking and public houses, seeing drink as a social evil. Despite the large number of houses being built in the Bishopthorpe Road area of York he was able to use his influence to prevent pubs opening in South Bank while he was alive. His influence lived on and even after died in 1920, and it was not until 1932 that the Knavesmire pub opened. Then the Winning Post opened on 22 May 1939, built by John Smith &amp; Sons, after the licence from the Red Lion in Micklegate was transferred to it. At the same time the licence from the former pub The Sportsman in Caroline St was forfeited.

The Winning Post was a popular pub with a large function room, becoming famous for many bands appearing there, including Shed Seven in their early days, and the York Punk band Cyanide. There were some great old characters too, such as ‘Mad Albert’.

The brewery changed, to Courage, then Scottish &amp; Newcastle, and then Heineken in 2008. By the 1990s however the structure of pub ownership changed, and pub-owning companies were set up (‘pubcos’), splitting off from breweries. The Winning Post is now owned by EI Publican Partnerships, which used to be Enterprise Inns.

The pub became rather run-down and by 2014 there were concerns about the possibility of a large supermarket taking over the premises here, with its effect on independent traders, as well as the loss of one of the only two pubs in the area. As a result, after an application by local traders it was listed in 2014 as an asset of community value, to protect it from development.

In December 2015, new managers Malcolm and Fiona Tolladay took over, with an ambitious and extensive programme of renovation. They were fascinated to find under the floor some interesting racing related decorative features – a horse and jockey and a horseshoe motif.

It is now a successful pub and community resource, with many regular events making use of its rooms, such as the Comedy Club, Gin Club, musical events, art exhibitions and cinema nights.

The Winning Post

By the 1880s the local population aroud here was growing fast, and a Methodist church was needed outside of the city walls, to offer educational opportunities for the working class, children and young adults alike in the South Bank area.

The church had begun as a Sunday school, held in George Everitt’s butchers shop at the bottom of Adelaide Street, and then moving to a mission room in Windsor St.

The move to build a new church was generously supported by several local businessmen and by a big church inside the city walls. Charles Bell was a specialist in Wesleyan Methodist chapels - he designed more than 60 which were built up and down the country - and he designed the new chapel for South Bank. It provided accommodation for a large congregation of 750 in the main church which had a balcony, three meeting rooms and a Sunday school block with 15 classrooms. Southlands opened as a Wesleyan Chapel on 13 October 1887.

In 1920 an additional single-storey building with two large rooms was built on land adjoining the church primarily, to provide social facilities for young men who were unable to find work after returning from service in the Great War. This was called the Thanksgiving Hall and it also provided facilities for the church’s Young Men’s Association and other activities.

Southlands has responded in many different ways to community needs, for example providing leisure facilities for soldiers during two world wars, and providing shelter and help for refugees from Belgium during the Great War and from Hungary in the mid-1950s. It now has a heavy programme of youth and children’s work and, more recently, has become a hub for the arts with 18 artists working out of 11 art studios established on the former balcony of the church and on the gallery in the Community Centre, formerly the Sunday school block.

In addition Seek Art School, offering daytime and evening art courses has come into partnership with the church, and rooms on the premises are hired out to community groups, including choirs, theatre groups, a jazz dance group, a Brazilian martial arts group, Song Box (a music group for toddlers), and a community café.

The Church has been renovated several times, and in 2016 the adjacent Thanksgiving Hall was demolished.

While we’re here we can tell you about two significant features of the site where the church was built, from centuries ago.&nbsp;

The Nun Windmill was on a mound, one of several around the city, which later served to house batteries during the Parliamentary Siege on York in 1644.

The Nun Windmill was one of two medieval windmills in 1524 belonging to Isabella Ward, Prioress of St Clement’s Nunnery, and built during the Nunnery's existence. David Hicks Wilstrop arrived as miller from Rufforth Mill in 1830 and then moved on to Castle Mills in 1843, to be replaced by his brother Thomas, who sadly later died of cholera in 1854. Ironically the following year a doctor born in York, Dr Snow, published his findings on how cholera was transmitted, using the experience of the Broad Street water pump in London.

The mill was eventually demolished in 1880, to make way for the church and houses. During demolition work Civil War cannonballs and lead musket bullets were found nearby.

The site has another surprising claim to fame, as it was said to be where Archbishop Richard Scrope was beheaded. He had played a leading role in the northern uprising against Henry IV in 1405, and suffered tragically for this.

We’re now going to walking along Southlands Road to our last stop, in Nunthorpe Grove.

Image: <a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2563617">''Southlands Methodist Church - Bishopthorpe Road''</a> by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/11162" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator" title="View profile" xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#">Betty Longbottom</a>&nbsp;is licensed under&nbsp;<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>&nbsp;/ filters applied to the original

Southlands Methodist Church

The only part of South Bank still undeveloped by 1930 was the central area of open land, with ponds and allotments. Then during the 1930s an estate of red brick semis with gardens was built here, between Southlands Road and South Bank Avenue.

Nunthorpe Grove has been described as the most ill-fated street in wartime York. In many parts it had not been possible to put up Anderson shelters, because much of the ground was waterlogged, making it unsuitable. On 29 April 1942, a bomb dropped on nos. 23 and 25, destroying these, as well as nos.19 and 21. Several people were badly injured, and the body of a young ATS girl, Dorothy Thompson, was later found at the bottom of a bomb crater in no.21. The houses were eventually rebuilt in 1946. Further bombs landed on other parts of the estate, between the houses.

In yet another devastating incident, on 5 March 1945, Halifax bombers from the Canadian 426 Squadron at Linton-on-Ouse took off for a raid on the German city of Chemnitz. These aircraft suffered from severe icing and three crashed soon after take-off. One broke up under the weight of ice which had accumulated on it, and its fuselage crashed on nos.26 and 28 Nunthorpe Grove, killing two elderly ladies, while one of the engines hit the nearby school. The aeroplane was carrying eight bombs. Eleven people died - six of the crew and five civilians - and another 18 were injured in the crash. Four houses were set on fire.

Alex Helstrip told us that his great-grandmother, Lydia Helstrip, was one of the two ladies tragically killed on that day by the crashing bomber. She lived in Cygnet St but happened to be visiting her widowed sister Laura, who lived at 28 Nunthorpe Grove, to have tea with her. Another sister, Maude, intended to come but couldn’t, as she was poorly, and avoided the disaster.

There were six sisters altogether, all born in York to the Temple family of the Groves, between 1862 and 1876. All married, including Lydia, who married George Helstrip, Alex’s great-grandfather.

Intriguingly when we looked at the marriage certificates, Laura and Lydia married on the same day in September 1896, at the same church, St Thomas’s, in the Groves, a double&nbsp;wedding. So it is particularly tragic that they died together almost 50 years later, Lydia (80) and Laura (74}.

That is the end of our walk, which we hope you’ve enjoyed.

Nunthorpe Grove

This walk around South Bank in York will&nbsp;point&nbsp;out some historical features from the last 100 years and earlier.

South Bank is a densely packed area of housing, bordering the Bishopthorpe Rd as it travels southwards from the centre of York. It lies between the River Ouse and the racecourse.

Most of the housing here is around 100 years old or more, with long straight streets of small houses opening directly onto pavements. These were built by developers 100 years ago in a growing opportunity to make money out of land. They housed artisans and other workers who desperately needed places to live near to the new factories.

The exception is the Nunthorpe estate of red-brick semi-detached houses, built in the 1930s on a plot of land near the centre of the area.&nbsp;

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History of South Bank in York

Two Mansions

York

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History of South Bank in York

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