Why historic theatre arches in Fishergate make us smile

This question arose this month with the sudden and unannounced demolition of the three stone ‘arches’ opposite The Priory Hotel on Fulford Road.

The fate of the arches had looked bleak in 2017, when a planning application wanted to demolish them, but it was later agreed the arches should become part of two new townhouses [currently under construction, in which the arches are expected to be rebuilt into the design].

This isn’t the place to investigate the reason for the demolition of the arches and when or if they will be rebuilt. But it’s an opportunity to think a little about the follies of York. Where are they, and why do they exist? And how well are they protected?

A dictionary definition of a folly is ‘an ornamental structure or building that is placed in a large garden or grounds and is primarily decorative rather than functional’.

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We might think of the great estates - Castle Howard, Studley Royal, Wentworth Woodhouse - and the extraordinary extravagant expense of their follies. York certainly has this type of folly - such as a 250-year-old roofless stone circular structure in the grounds of Bishopthorpe Palace, or the 1830s gothic folly in the gardens of Moreby Hall near Naburn.

But the remarkable history of the Fulford Road arches shows that, whilst not originally built as a folly, it became one.

The arches were originally part of an eight-part arcade designed for the Theatre Royal in 1834 by eminent architect, Richard Harper. The arcade was part of Harper’s 1830s creation of St Leonard’s Place.

Designed as a piazza, it was flanked by the arcade and theatre on one side, and a string of eight grand townhouses on the other (what was until 2012 City of York Council’s offices); all very different from the bus stop queues and trudging traffic that we have on St Leonard’s Place today!

Chelmsford Place and the theatre arches. Photo from ffhyork.weebly (Image: Photo from ffhyork.weebly)

Harper’s theatre arcade was replaced in 1879 when the arches were sold to a York seed merchant called Isaac Poad, a known collector of carved historic stonework as garden follies.

All eight arches were used on Fulford Road as a sort of boundary wall to a coach house and garden that served a property opposite - today’s Priory Hotel - that Poad had recently given as a wedding gift to one of his daughters.

A century later, and the creation of Ellwood Court, next door, in the 1980s, led to the removal of five of the arches (some of the arches have ended up as standalone ‘follies’ in the Priory Hotel’s rear garden).

The story of these arches moving around the city is not well known by all York’s citizens, and less so by visitors. It would be easy to associate the arches’ medieval style and the name of ‘Priory Hotel’ opposite, and from it make a reasonable guess that they had been part of an old, religious building nearby.

York has several follies made from reused religious architectural salvage. Examples of it can be seen in gardens along Tadcaster Road, Fishergate, and the five stone-carved lancet window in the grounds of the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall.

The existence of these follies can prompt us to ask interesting questions about our heritage: what happened to York’s religious buildings - of which the city had nearly a dozen priories and abbeys until Henry VIII and his ‘Dissolution of the Monasteries’ (1536-41) - that’s led to bits of them ending up as follies in our gardens?

There are only a thousand follies listed across the whole of England. Most of these are as a small aspect of bigger listings of country houses and estates (follies are recognised far more as local heritage; York is no exception, with the Fulford Road arches being on York’s Local Heritage List). This could be read as a bit of snobbery, follies being not quite the real deal, not serious enough in intent to deserve greater protection as heritage.

And yet, isn’t the playfulness of a good folly - to be startled by the absurdity of finding medieval-looking stone arches between a Victorian terrace and a 1980s apartment block on Fulford Road - exactly the joy they can bring us? Can’t historic buildings and structures be fun, make us smile, and yet be significant too?

Duncan Marks, York Civic Trust