City's tower of strength

HOW do you make the past a nourishing, rather than stifling, presence for the future of York? This dilemma faces York's city council, tourism bureau, business and industrial community and artistic endeavour alike.

When York Tourism Bureau and First Stop York Partnership commissioned a new emblem for the city in 2001, cynics scoffed at the final choice of Live The History - and the £20,000 cost of the year-long research by Sowden Watson Design of Hull. Yet that principle is being put into practice as more than mere branding: diverse organisations are living the history by making new use of historic buildings.

At the September 2001 launch of the logo, York Tourism Bureau's chief executive, Gillian Cruddas, said: "Some of the findings confirmed what we already knew, for example that York's history is its key strength."

York Arts Centre set the artistic lead as long ago as 1968, regenerating the Grade II-listed St John's Church in Micklegate as Britain's first arts centre. Alas, financial problems as much as the practical shortcomings of an old structure led to its demise overnight in August 1999 but elsewhere a host of buildings across the city have been given a new lease of life.

There is the Archaeological Resource Centre in St Saviour's Church, in St Saviourgate; Michael Bennett's Richard III Museum in Monkgate Bar; the Micklegate Bar Museum; and Borders book store in a Grade II-listed Georgian chapel in Davygate. Hefty National Lottery funding has eased the passage of transformation of St Margaret's Church, Walmgate, into the National Centre for Early Music and the same goes for the Yorkshire Herald building in Coney Street, now home to the arthouse cinema of City Screen, York.

No such funding has come the way of 25-year-old artists Helen Brigham and partner Mark Jacobs, and yet the Fulford couple have managed to conjure York's newest arts space, The Tower studio and gallery, from the base material of the Fishergate Postern on Piccadilly. Only pigeon and council workmen on tea breaks had seen fit to use this medieval building, which stands opposite that symbol of modern York culture, J D Wetherspoon's Postern Gate pub.

Even now, with the contemporary visual arts gallery and studio up and running, lighting is run off only two large batteries. No water, no electricity, no loo, only the narrowest of stairways: who could work in a place like this? "No one suggested that might be a problem to us," says Helen, who moved to York with Mark after they completed their BA studies in Fine Art and Sculpture at Sheffield Hallam University in 2000.

"We decided to settle in York in 2001 - we had often visited when Mark's brother was at the university and we loved it - and our search for studio space began. We regularly walked the City Walls when we moved here, and we're both attracted to old buildings, and each time we passed it we thought it was a tragedy that the Postern was not being used."

They contacted the city council. "Council officer Paul Fox came along with a key, let us in and showed us around, and we fell in love with it. We couldn't believe no one had considered using the building for so long," says Helen.

"There had been a couple of proposals, including holiday letting, but that would have needed water and electricity, and would have had rooms within rooms, which would have defeated the point of using the existing space."

The council was supportive, so too was city archaeologist John Oxley, and Mark and Helen set to work on clearing out the building, where road signs, cones and scaffolding had been piled high. Dead pigeons in the eves had to be removed too.

Their work commitments - both work for Ellis Brigham Mountain Sports - necessitated they should concentrate their Postern labours on weekends, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. "It's one of those projects you can really enjoy working on, even just getting the rooms clean," says Helen.

Approval for the project was forthcoming from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, which granted Scheduled Monument Ancient Consent. Here were the rules: there could be no drilling into the walls but they could put a trap door in each floor to facilitate a pulley system to transfer pictures, furniture, work benches, tools, whatever, upwards to the second gallery floor and studio space above.

Here, surrounded by jars and tools of the trade, Helen is working on her latest piece of conceptual art, a claustrophobic version of a bed. Chilly it may be, and prone to dirt gathering from the pigeons scraping on the 18th century timber roof above, but the studio is wonderfully atmospheric, affording panoramic views across the city skyline.

Last month, The Tower held its first exhibition: work on walls and floor by Manchester Metropolitan University postgraduate students inspired by the Postern tower itself. A second show will follow from July 23 to August 10, open Wednesday to Sunday, featuring Morwenna Catt, Graham Martin, Christine Fowler and Helen herself. Admission will be free; work is not for sale (as further planning permission would be required).

Will funding ever come the way of the "not-for-profit" Tower project, to furnish Helen and Mark's desire to exhibit work by emerging, challenging artists and provide them with a "unique environment for experimentation" and a forum to exchange ideas, advice and information?

"When we first decided we wanted to have a gallery space here, we approached Yorkshire Arts and the Arts Council of England about possible Regional Arts Lottery Programme funding; they responded encouragingly, except that they encouraged us to find another building. So we decided to do the first show to show them what we could do, who has come to the gallery, and who the Tower has appealed to. Now we can approach them again for funding."

Determination and imagination, graft and craft, have come together in The Tower, the most surprising arts project of the year in York. What's more, living the history, the gallery has opened on the 500th anniversary of building work on the Postern starting.

For more information on The Tower, visit the website www.artinthetower.org.uk or ring 01904 634115.

Updated: 12:24 Wednesday, June 11, 2003