York Historic Environment Record

Buildings of the Phoenix and Albion Iron Foundries now used as workshops and storage sheds for Network Rail and the Post Office. Buildings date from 1872/3 when the two foundries moved from separate sites in the city centre to adjacent sites close to the North Eastern Railway Company operations. In 1880 the two combined to form the York Engineering Co. The surviving complex consists of six brick buildings which include the office block of the original Albion Works, the foundry, smith’s shop, machine shop and part of an original Phoenix building. The foundries produced a variety of cast and wrought iron components for the construction of the expanding railway infrastructure such as columns, girders, roof trusses for stations and workshops, bridges, lamp standards and so on. The buildings survive as some of the few reminders of a crucial aspect of York’s industrial history. Buildings identified as being of local archaeological and historic interest through the work of the York Open Planning Forum.