York Historic Environment Record

Survey and analysis of a group of workshops situated in Leeman Road and forming one continuous building, owned by Network Rail and until recently used in connection with the maintenance of permanent way (railway track). They originated in the eighteen-seventies as the premises of York’s Phoenix Foundry but have been in railway ownership since 1905. This has entailed extensive changes to the building but it is shown that a majority of the original walls survive and that the original distinctions between the various shops comprising the foundry can still be traced. Although several major workshops have had their roof structures entirely replaced, some original structures evidently survive. Other than flues and chimney stumps for smiths’ hearths, no evidence has been found for the machinery originally employed by the foundry; the buildings appear to have been generally stripped out when they came into railway ownership.