York Historic Environment Record

House. c1730, C19 alteration with shopfront, and extension. Possibly for John Riley. Red-brown brick in Flemish bond with timber doorcase, stone plinth band and orange-red brick window arches; rear wing rendered. Cavetto moulded eaves cornice. Roof tiled at front, pantiled at rear with brick stacks. Town house plan.

EXTERIOR: 3 storeys and attic; 3-window front. Shopfront with sunk panelled jambs and plain cornice, and half canted plate glass window to left of recessed half glazed door with overlight. To right, doorcase with moulded architrave, fluted frieze and consoles beneath moulded cornice hood; three steps up to 6-panel door with divided overlight. First floor windows are tall unequal 15-pane sashes beneath flat arches: 12-pane sashes on second floor, left end one with box frame and heavy glazing bars. Painted stone sills to all windows. Raised first and second floor bands. Fall pipe on fleur-de-lys clamps.

INTERIOR: inspection not possible. RCHM record: open string staircase with turned balusters and newel, and swept moulded handrail. On ground floor: moulded and keyed semicircular staircase arch with panelled soffit on panelled pilaster responds. Two doorways in staircase hall, one with early C19 architrave with reeded jambs and plain angle blocks, second with original architrave and door of 6 fielded panels: cellar doorway has similar moulded architrave and door. On first floor: front room with panelling, moulded cornice and late C18 fireplace. Close string staircase to attic. Attics: gypsum plaster floors. (City of York: RCHME: South-west of the Ouse: HMSO: 1972-: 80-81).
Listing NGR: SE5990951601

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

House, Nos. 73, 75, is probably the 'new erected messuage' sold on 23 October 1730 by John Riley, bricklayer, and his wife to John Riley of New Malton (YCA, E.93, f. 57). By 1763 the property belonged to Matthew Smith, yeoman, but had been let in succession to two whitesmiths, John Simpson and Thomas Cave (1715–79), the latter the father of the engraver William Cave (1751–1812) and grandfather of Henry Cave the artist; Simpson was the master to whom Thomas Cave had been apprenticed in 1729 (YCA, E.94, f. 50; T. P. Cooper, The Caves of York (1934)). The house was later occupied by a succession of private tenants, including c. 1820–5 Captain John Beckwith, until 1830, after which it became a grocer's shop (Borthwick Inst., Rate Books of St. Martin-cum-Gregory).

The street front, three-storeyed with attics above and three bays wide, is in good brickwork with finer red brick dressings. At first and second floors are brick bands of oversailing courses and, above, a deep moulded cornice. The ground floor, converted to a shop in the 19th century, has to the W., in the position of the original main entrance, a doorway to No. 75; the door-case is of the 18th century. The windows at first and second floors are set at irregular intervals. The rear elevation is two-storeyed, the attic being in the roof space; there is a small two-storeyed addition against it.

Inside, the ground floor is divided into a shop, occupying the front and back rooms of the former house, and the approach to the flat above, consisting of the original entrance passage and central staircase. At the S. end of the E. side wall of the passage is an archway to the staircase with a timber casing with panelled pilaster-like features on the responds, a moulded semicircular arch with sunk panels on the soffit, and very deep key-block. In the staircase hall are two doorways, one with an early 19th-century architrave with reeded jambs etc., and plain square blocks in the corners, the other with an original moulded architrave and door with six fielded panels; a doorway to the cellar, below the upper flight of the staircase, has a similar moulded architrave and door.

The Staircase has, to the lower stage, a cut string, treads with rectangular cheeks and long overlaps, two turned balusters to each tread, swept moulded handrail, and turned newel. From the first floor it has a closed string with deep mouldings and plain newels varying in size; the upper flights are steeper and the handrail is not swept up to the newels.

The main N.W. Room on the first floor is panelled and has three sash windows; the moulded cornice breaks and returns forward over the fireplace and window openings; above the door is applied Adamesque decoration, which is probably the frieze reused from a small late 18th-century fireplace. The floors of the attics are of gypsum plaster.

Derived from RCHME - 'Secular Buildings: Micklegate', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in City of York, Volume 3, South west (London, 1972), pp.80. Monument 75

Information from the NMR
73-5 Micklegate, house built c1730, 19th century alterations with shopfront, and extension. Possibly for John Riley. Town house plan. Exterior: 3 storeys and attic; 3-window front.

613515 Architectural Survey Investigation by RCHME/EH Architectural Survey

BF060821 73-75 MICKLEGATE, YORK File of material relating to a site or building. This material has not yet been fully catalogued.

RCHME, 1972, RCHME City of York Volume III South-west of the Ouse (Monograph). SYO64.

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