York Historic Environment Record

Formerly known as: The Minster Chamber MINSTER YARD. Pair of houses, now part of school. 1837 with later alteration and extension. By JP Pritchett for the Dean and Chapter: staircase ironwork by the Walker Foundry. Limestone ashlar with extensions of orange-grey brick and slate roofs: ashlar octagonal stacks, tripled at right gable end, with moulded caps: brick stacks at rear. STYLE: Gothick.

EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and cellars; 7-bay front terminating in embattled octagonal turrets. Centre bay is gabled and flanked by 2-stage buttresses. Cellar openings in moulded and chamfered plinth. Centre left and right bays have doorways with 4-centred heads and plain board doors with overlights of paired cinquefoiled lights. All ground floor windows are square-headed with sloped sills, and of 3 cinquefoiled lights. First floor centre window is of two tiers of 3 cinquefoiled lights in traceried 2-centred head. Other first floor windows similar to those on ground floor, but of 2 lights. All openings are double hollow chamfered and have coved hoodmoulds with return stops. Coved string courses at first floor and eaves levels encircle turrets and return to left and right. Embattled parapet with moulded coping. Left and right returns: ground and first floor windows correspond with those on front. Right return has 3-light plain window to cellar. Attics have 2-centred window openings, with paired pointed lights in left return, single light beneath coved hood in right return.

INTERIORS: staircase in No.8 has cast-iron balustrade of traceried panels: in No.9 balustrade of vine scrolls. Both houses retain 'Gothick'-style fireplaces, with castellated surrounds, tracery panelled jambs or quatrefoiled friezes. Several plaster cornices and ceilings survive, including entrance passage and hall in No.9.

(City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 165). Listing NGR: SE6034252104

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

Houses, Nos. 8, 9, originally designed as a Wills Office by J. P. Pritchett for the Dean and Chapter in 1837, were completed as private dwellings first occupied by William Hudson and Edward Barker. They form part of a larger complex including Nos. 48, 50 Low Petergate (339). The main block, in Perpendicular style, is of two storeys with attics, built of stone with slate roofs, and has gabled side elevations and a gabled central bay, corner octagonal turrets, and a battlemented parapet. A wing to the rear of No. 8 is of brick and three storeys high. Several rooms contain moulded cornices and Gothic type fireplaces. The main staircases have cast-iron balusters, based on Gothic tracery in No. 8 and on vine stems with grapes in No. 9.

City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 165. Monument 279

NMR Information

List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. District of York, 14-MAR-1997

BF060858 8-9 MINSTER YARD, YORK File of material relating to a site or building. This material has not yet been fully catalogued.

Architect J P PRITCHETT 1837 1838

RCHME, 1981, City of York Volume V: The Central Area (Monograph). SYO65.

NMR, 2019, NMR data (Digital archive). SYO2214.

Rydale Archaeology Service Ltd, 2021, The Minster School (Unpublished document). SYO2673.