Buildings: Bonding Warehouse
2004-present
2004-present
The Bonding Warehouse has just been sold. See the local press article.
It's now a year since the photo below was taken, and at last it seems that things are moving, with plans being suggested for future uses for this building. No one seemed to care for years, now the bidders are fighting over the place, with an amusing war of words reported by the local Press. One party, who is accused of wanting to create a "yuppie playpen", says that other's plan is "a load of old hippy rubbish". If this building were a person it would be rolling its eyes in despair by now.
I try to remain impartial and just observe goings on regarding York and its buildings, but this case of neglect is just inexcusable. Here is the Bonding Warehouse, photographed on 13 November 2005. A fine Victorian building next to the river at Skeldergate Bridge, right in the centre of our beautiful, much visited city. It's been empty for years.
Never have I seen so many pigeons on one roof. The reason that the pigeons cover the roof is that they're presumably all nesting inside. Pigeons in this case seem more sensible than we humans, as they use buildings when we can't be bothered to look after them.
I first took photos of the Bonding Warehouse in February 2004 - including this one (left). The windows were broken then, and the stonework was turning green, and the drainpipes were leaking. Possibly it will be so unstable eventually that it will be easier to knock it down and chuck up some modern flats instead. We've got people sleeping on the streets, and young people who say they've got nowhere to go, and there's a vast warehouse right in the middle of the city that's empty and rotting. A shocking waste.
The Pevsner guide calls it 'splendid', as it was some years ago, when the book was published.
For more information, please see previous pages on the Bonding Warehouse, from February 2004 and summer 2004.