York Historic Environment Record

Formerly known as: Nos.67 AND 67A LOW PETERGATE. House; now part shops, part school. Front block dated 1743; C15 and C16 rear wings, remodelled in early C17

EXTERIOR: extensive alterations later. Front block of painted rendered brick, with timber colonnade and cornice; left return of orange-brown brick in English garden-wall bond: rear wings timber-framed with rendered infilling. Roofs are tiled or pantiled with brick coping and brick stacks, some truncated.

EXTERIOR: 3 storeys and attic; 5-bay front. C20 plate glass shopfronts behind tetrastyle in antis colonnade. First and second floor windows are 12-pane sashes. Moulded modillioned eaves cornice, returned at each end, with winged cherub rainwater head dated 1743, initialled JR, and fall pipe on rosette clamps. 2 pedimented dormer windows with 2-light casements to attics. Rear: three gabled wings, timber-frame exposed. Fenestration largely C20 timber mullioned windows: blocked timber mullion window visible in gable end of centre wing. On second floor of right wing is canted oriel window with 12-pane sash between 8-pane sashes. In return of centre wing is 6-panel door beneath vestigial bressumer carved with vine trails, with round-arched staircase sash above; 2-light 2- and 4-pane Yorkshire sash on second floor.

INTERIOR: front block, first floor: C18 fireplace with dentilled cornice shelf in right front room; moulded cornice in left front room. Second floor: close string staircase to attics has column on vase balusters, square newels and flat moulded handrail. Right front room has painted stone bolection-moulded fireplace. 2- and 3-panel doors. Centre wing: open well staircase to second floor, plastered and panelled beneath. It has moulded close string, bulbous balusters, panelled newels with ball and pedestal finials, heavy moulded handrail, and carved foliate volute at base of bottom newel. Doorcase at foot of stairs has pulvinated frieze, cornice and door of 6 raised and fielded panels. Left wing: ground floor room has moulded brick fireplace with flattened elliptical arch and shallow arched recesses above.

(Bartholomew City Guides: Hutchinson J and Palliser DM: York: Edinburgh: 1980-: 167; City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 191). Listing NGR: SE6039552028

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

House, No. 64, also used by the York College for Girls, stands on part of the site of the house occupied by the Talbots in the 16th century and of the Talbot Inn in the 17th century. The front block of the present building was erected in 1743 and dated on a rainwater head, but behind are two timber-framed wings of earlier date. The S.E. wing has two walls retaining main posts probably of the 15th century, and against its N.E. side is a lean-to, the remaining fragment of a 16th-century structure, formerly of two storeys. In the 17th century, the 15th-century walls were largely rebuilt and heightened to accommodate a new staircase, known now as the 'Talbot stairs'. The wing to the N.W., also timber-framed, has been heavily restored but appears to be of 17th-century origin.

The front block is of brick, three storeys high and five bays wide. The bottom storey has been converted to a shop, with modern display windows behind a modern colonnade; the wall above is rendered and rises to a timber block cornice. The windows have hung sashes and the lead rainwater head bears the initials and date JR 1743, possibly for James Roe or Rowe (1746 Directory; 1741 York City Poll); two pedimented dormers light the attic. At the back, most of the timber framing visible is either of the 17th century or modern. On the N.W. side of the earlier wing is a moulded beam, carved with a vine trail, and on the N.E. side the first floor has a blocked window of three pairs of lights, each pair divided by a timber mullion and separated from the next pair by a timber stud. On the N.E. side of the 16th-century fragment is a moulded first-floor beam. The 'Talbot stairs' are lit by a round-headed 18th-century window on the N.W. side.

(345) Above the shop, the interior is simply finished; some of the fittings were renewed in the 19th century. A small staircase of 1743 leads from the second floor to the attics. In the S.E. back wing, two main posts of the original build remain. The 'Talbot stairs' rise around an open well, trapezoidal in shape, and the irregular angles are reproduced in the solid panelled newelposts; bulbous turned balusters stand on deep moulded strings and carry a sturdy handrail, the whole having a massive appearance. The lowest flight has been realigned with the second flight. There is a carved scroll against the foot of the first newel, and the underside of each flight is plastered and panelled. The roof over the front block is carried on purlins tusk-tenoned to the principal rafters of simple collar-beam trusses. There is no ridge-purlin.

(346) The Fox Inn, formerly on site of No. 66, was a timber-framed house built in the second half of the 15th century, standing end on to the street. The S.W. front was of four storeys, two bays deep, with one room on each floor. Behind this was a two-storeyed range of at least three bays with a lofty twobayed open hall on the first floor. In the late 16th or early 17th century a chimney-breast was inserted in the N.E. bay of the hall. This heated the remodelled rooms at the N.E. end of the building, which was rebuilt with a higher first-floor level and a second floor was inserted to form a semi-attic. The street front was rebuilt early in the 18th century and subsequently stuccoed. The S.W. bay of the hall may have remained undivided until the 19th century.

The hall was lit by one or more unglazed three-light windows high up in the N.W. wall, with lozenge-shaped wooden mullions, and its open truss had fine arched braces under the tie-beam, springing from moulded and carved corbels cut on the main posts. Much of the original 'wall-tile' infilling of the timber framework survived. The roofs of the front block and of the hall had collared rafters and strutted side-purlins. Towards the back, to the E. of the main range, were two small timber-framed buildings. One of these was of late 15th-century date with 17th-century staircase and chimney-breast, whilst the other was of late 16th-century date, remodelled in the late 17th century.

The front block, most of the hall, and the two small buildings were demolished in 1957. The hall chimney-breast survives up to first-floor level and, with the N.E. end of the building, now forms part of York College for Girls. (RCHM, Monuments Threatened or Destroyed, 72).

Monuments 345, 346, City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 191

NMR Information

64-66 Low Petergate. Timber framed house constructed during the 15th and 16th century, incorporated into a three storey house of 1743. The rear wings were remodelled in the early 17th century. The building became a shop in the early 19th century and was part of York College for Girls by 1988. In 2005-6 the building was converted into flats.

Full description

(SE 60405204-O.S 1/2500, 1962)

1. LOW PETERGATE 5343 (north-east side)

No 64 (formerly listed as Nos 67 and 67A)

SE 6052 SW 27/474 14.6.54

II* GV

2.
1743 with later alterations. Incorporates at rear two 2-storeyed timber framed wings of C15 and C16 origin. Front block: rendered brick; 3 storeys plus attic; 5 sash windows; stuccoed dentil eaves cornice 2 pedimented dormers. Ground storey modern with shop fronts set back behind colonnade of Tuscan style columns. Rainwater head inscribed I.R. 1743 and pipe clamps with rosettes. Interior generally altered but retains upper flight of original staircase. The rear wings, which are of exposed timber frame and brick restored in part, contain some exposed timbers including 2 moulded beams and, in the earlier wing a C17 staircase, known as the 'Talbot stairs'. (RCHM Vol. V, Monument 345.)

Sources
1 List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. p190 City of York, June 1983.
2 List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. District of York, 14-MAR-1997

BF061033 YORK COLLEGE FOR GIRLS File of material relating to a site or building. This material has not yet been fully catalogued.

68 Low Petergate, The Fox Inn. A house built in the second half of the 15th century, with alterations in the late 16th -early 17th, and early 19th centuries. The building had been converted into a public house by 1892 and by 2006 was in use as a shop with flats above. The the rear of the main house are two buildings, one dating from the late 15th century and the second from the lat 16th century, with late 17th century alterations. Both buildings are now part of the shop.

BF061035 THE FOX INN, YORK File of material relating to a site or building. This material has not yet been fully catalogued.

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

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