Temporary traffic lights in Main Street.
Yorkshire Watermen at work.
Main Street obstacle course.Main Street has been looking less than picturesque of late, but we're assured that it's all in a good cause. Since before Christmas, Yorkshire Water has been upgrading the water mains throughout the village in order to improve the quality of our water.
It's frustrating to find the streets turned into obstacle courses - and to spend a day without water on tap - but consider what it must have been like when it had to be pumped up from wells and carried back home in buckets. This didn't, of course, apply to the Palace household because water was pumped into the building directly from the murky depths of the Ouse. That continued until 1863 when the scientifically-minded Archbishop Thomson arrived. He installed a water tower and pump house in Acaster Lane which made use of a well.
As for the rest of Bishopthorpe's residents, they had to wait a while longer. In 1880, the vicar, with his colleagues of the vestry, tried to interest the York New Water Works Company in laying a mains water supply. Unfortunately, a guaranteed rental of £80 per annum was demanded and the idea was quickly dropped. The village had to wait until 1898 before a mains supply was ordered through the District Council - and by this time, most of the local wells had been condemned as unsafe.
Frustrated? Let's hear it for the 'good old days'!
