York Historic Environment Record

Between 20th April and 10th May 2022 York Archaeology conducted a structural watching brief of a timber-framed building at 1 Little Shambles, York. The work consisted of a historic building recording during the repair, removal and replacement of selected timbers, infill panels and defective windows within the rear southeast gable elevation of the extant timberframed building. Equivalent work was also undertaken within the southeast end of the returning southwest side elevation. The watching brief established that there appeared to have been substantial restoration work in the past, most drastically during the 1950s, which entailed a considerable degree of timber replacement and later construction of infill panels with additional iron brackets, bolts and the like. A series of irregularities amongst the timber-framed members and joints were identified including a number of pegs (as well as empty peg holes and/or peg holes filled with lead) and mortices amongst the timbers without any coherent association with the current timber-framed assembly. There are also pegs which bear no association with any apparent joint assembly and may be instead ornamental features. Other ornamental pegs were identified within existing joints although these do not extend through the timbers securing any tenon. The partial removal of infill panels did not reveal any evidence of wattle-and-daub construction (which requires stave auger holes and grooves in the opposite timber member), except for the crown post with grooves on both lateral sides. Although the majority of the timbers appear to be later spurious replacement, the main historic form of the building has been maintained, encompassing a small number of primary historic timber members including the principal posts, the crown post within the southeast elevation, and the right wall plate of the northeast side elevation. Nevertheless, the current floor levels appear to vary slightly from their original location as indicated by a series of obsolete historic mortices of primary girding beams, as well as associated braces. The current floor joists are also likely to be later members aligned with their corresponding replaced beams.