York’s Exhibition Square could be the most picturesque set of bus stops in the world.
Yorks Exhibition Square, with William Etty's statue in the foreground and the Minster behind Bootham Bar in the background.
It must be up there – which is damning an iconic part of York city centre with faint praise indeed.
The square was built in 1879 to celebrate the Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition of that year, for which the Art Gallery was built. (For those who are counting, the exhibition attracted 548,890 people between May and November of 1879, making an overall profit of £12,000.) The statue of William Etty, York’s premier artist of historic note, was added in 1911.
Exhibition Square features in many historic views of the city. From the steps of York Art Gallery you get a wonderful picture of Bootham Bar, the Minster and the de Grey Rooms. Turn right and you can see King’s Manor, which has hosted Henry VIII and the government of England at times in its history.
Further down towards St Leonard’s place there’s a bit of Roman wall. You won’t see that in Times Square, or while strolling down the Champs Elysees. Even further down St Leonard’s Place you’ll find the Theatre Royal.
And the fountain and statue of Etty should add the final sparkling touches to a glorious outdoor space.
And yet Exhibition Square never really gets the blood racing in the way that other city squares do. Mainly, I think because of the traffic. More specifically: the buses.
With hindsight we can curse the town planners who decided to run York’s first ringroad right through Exhibition Square to connect Gillygate and Bootham to St Leonard’s Place – right in front of Bootham Bar. To be fair, York escaped most of the postwar ravages that blight other towns and cities, so a few bus stops isn’t the end of the world.
Although the time has surely come to take down the redundant plexiglass shelters at every bus stop. Nobody uses them; most people prefer to sit on the wall. And if it is raining and you want to keep dry, why not pop in the Art Gallery? It’s free, for God’s sake, about 20 yards from your bus stop, and it’s full of stuff that couldn’t fit in the National Gallery in London!
And then there’s all the tour buses, which again find Exhibition Square an irresistibly practical place to stop. Again, it’s hard to find an argument against them doing so, but they don’t half get in your way when you’re trying to frame a decent photo of the Minster.
All in all, three lanes of slow-moving traffic, a herd of double-deckers and a constant stream of Park And Rides don’t exactly add to the ambience of the place. Which is why you won’t find many modern views of the square on any postcards.
One final point about Exhibition Square: at night it plays host to a jacket potato wagon which, if the bloke’s wife is cooking the spuds, serves the best late-night takeaway food in York. Handy for the 24-hour taxi rank outside the public toilets, too.
Continue your York tour
Go north-west to Bootham
Go south-east to High Petergate
Access the York City Wall at Bootham Bar
Go south to Duncombe Place, Museum Street or towards St Helen’s Square.