York Historic Environment Record

House with shop. 1836-39, with late C19 alteration and C20 shopfront. Brown-red brick in Flemish bond, right side rendered, with attached dressings of faience and orange moulded brick; moulded timber cornice and rendered stack to hipped pantile roof. EXTERIOR: Parliament Street front 4 storeys, 3 bays; St Sampson's Square front 4 storeys, 2 bays. Angles of upper floors clad in tiers of paired grooved and plain pilasters with moulded imposts. Shopfront to Parliament Street has central glazed door between half-canted plate glass windows. On upper floors, windows are 1-pane sashes in ovolo-moulded architraves with flat keyed arches of gauged brick, and narrow aprons moulded in low relief scrolls beneath sills. St Sampson's Square front: to left of shopfront, returned from Parliament Street, is panelled door in moulded doorcase with grooved pilaster jambs, and overlight in moulded and pedimented overdoor between volutes. On first floor is inserted 3-light shop window with Composite pilaster jambs and moulded dentilled cornice. Other windows repeat those on Parliament Street front. INTERIOR: not inspected.
Listing NGR: SE6035451883

Derived from English Heritage LB download dated: 22/08/2005

22-23 Parliament Street were constructed between 1836 and 1839, originally two separate properties, with shops to the ground floor, showroom to the first floor at number 22 and living accommodation to the remaining upper floors. Advertisements in the Yorkshire Gazette in 1844 indicate the occupant of the site was the business of “J. Waudby & Sons, Marble Importers and Manufacturers with extensive works in Hull.” They sold monuments, and the first-floor showrooms displayed chimney pieces. In 1855, no. 22½ Parliament Street was the shop or workshop of Thomas Wright, milliner and dressmaker. In Stevens' Directory of York of 1885, the building is listed both on Parliament Street and St Sampson’s Square, at which time it was occupied by A. and J. Kleiser, watchmakers and jewellers. Kelly’s Directory of York of 1913 lists Kleiser & Sons still at number 22 and W. R. Fletcher, a butcher’s shop, at number 24. Later photographic evidence dating from 1957, shows number 22 in use as a Timothy Whites & Taylors chemist to the ground floor and insurance offices above and number 23 as separate shop but its name is unclear. Both properties have 20th century shopfront inserted at ground floor by this time (Heritage Statement Purcell 2024). A photograph dating to 1979 shows number 22 in use as another opticians (Dollond and Aitchison) with residential accommodation above. A later photograph dating to 1987 shows number 22 now in use as Dollond & Aitchison opticians and number 23 as Maynews, a local newsagent chain.
Dollond & Aitchison expanded into the upper floors of number 23 during the late 20th century, and amalgamated the shopfronts in 2006 in a timber traditional style. The optician’s chain was one of the oldest retail opticians in the United Kingdom, established in 1750, until it was merged with Boots Opticians in 2009. Numbers 22 and 23 operated as Boots Opticians until its closure in 2023.