| New Earswick Factfile | At Jospeh Rowntree's insistence, there have always been fruit trees in every garden in New Earswick. There isn't one pub in New Earswick due to its founder, Joseph Rowntree, being a Quaker. Almost all the roads in New Earswick are named after trees. The Hart, a bronze sculpture of a stag that stands within the Hartrigg Oaks retirement community, was made by internationally recognised sculptor Sally Arnup. The houses in New Earswick were built with bricks from the local brick works, now a nature reserve. |
The village came into existence 1902 a year after Joseph's son Seebohm published his book Poverty: a study of town life - a study of the living conditions of the working classes in York, which revealed appalling statistics of dark, overcrowded and unsanitary housing. Joseph conceded that it must be possible to provide better housing for people on low incomes and so set out to test his theory. The first houses in the village were built on Western Terrace and Poplar Grove, with other facilities following shortly after - local shops, a village school, a bus service, a railway station, and the all important community centre, named The Folk Hall, which Rowntree saw as fundamental to sustaining a lively community.  | | New Earswick Folk Hall: the heart of the community |
The Folk Hall is still the focus of the village, being the venue for the meetings of countless clubs and societies, including the York & District Budgie Society, York Bridge Club, and the York Coronary Support Group. Manager George Brett, who's been running the Folk Hall for 13 years, says "It's a lovely building to work in, it has so much character. We see so many different walks of life… Every day you wake up in the morning thinking, what's going to happen today? It's just that type of building" The Residents' Forum, which also meets monthly at the Folk Hall, was originally known as the Village Council, and was set up at the insistence of Joseph Rowntree who wanted to ensure that tenants had a say in how it the village was run. This unique dialogue between landlord and tenant continues today, with the Residents' Forum also acting on behalf of those who, in recent years, have bought houses in New Earswick. |
