Gilesgate

Arrival at Gilesgate today is a very different experience to that experienced sixty and more years ago.  Whereas today’s visitor is confronted by an enormous traffic gyratory that bears no relation to the surrounding built form and provides no suggestion of a gateway to a beautiful medieval cathedral City, the visitor sixty years ago would have been drawn into the City centre along Gilesgate towards Claypath.  This strong linear route was defined by increasingly dense urban form, running along the spine of the ridge, down towards the Market Place.  The post-war highways scheme exploded the urban fabric and its simple legibility to the extent that the visitor is drawn, counter-intuitively, away from the natural arrival point which can still be seen at the top of Gilesgate, but which is frustratingly out of reach.