York Historic Environment Record

Formerly known as: Fordham's Hotel LOW PETERGATE. Hotel, now cafe. Mid C19, incorporating fragments of medieval structure; early C18 wing; late C20 renovation and shopfront.

MATERIALS: medieval structure timber-framed: front of orange brick in Flemish bond with dressings and raised quoins of white brick; timber shopfront; C18 wing of orange- brown brick in stretcher bond; C19 extension of white brick in English garden-wall bond. Roof not visible.

EXTERIOR: 4-storey 5-bay front. Shopfront with modillioned cornice incorporates part-glazed passage door between sunk-panelled pilasters at left: plate glass window is of 3 unequal lights with 4-centred heads to right of recessed glazed door. Windows on first and second floors are 1-pane sashes, on third floor 12-pane sashes, all with segmental heads beneath 2-centred arches of orange and white brick. First floor windows have painted stone sill band; second and third floor windows have painted stone sills extended in white brick to form flat sill bands. Eaves parapet with flat coping has inset crosses of white brick.

INTERIOR: not inspected: RCHM record C17 staircase above ground floor with bulbous balusters, newels with attached half-balusters and moulded handrail; late C19 secondary staircase in rear wing; several C19 marble fireplaces, moulded cornices and panelled doors.

(City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 193). Listing NGR: SE6032752071

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

Nos. 49, 51, probably originally consisted of a timber-framed range of three storeys with attics parallel to the street. In the late 17th century a brick closet and staircase block, with the stairs continuous to the attics, was built at the rear, and a wing was added in the early 18th century. The building was refaced and altered internally, with the attics heightened to form a full storey, in the second half of the 19th century, when it became the Fordham Hotel. It is now a four-storeyed brick building with a modern flat roof, and has a late 19th-century single-storey slate-roofed extension at the rear.

The front elevation has five segmental-headed sash windows to each floor, above a shop front and fasia, with a continuous band at first-floor level andb separate projecting sills to the upper floors. A polychrome effect is given by the use of lighter bricks. A passage emerges at the rear, beneath an offset with differiing windows on three floors above the opening. The first and second-floor windows of the main rear elevation were altered in the 19th century. On the N.W. Of the building is a light-well and a straight joint, corresponding to the staircase wall, marks the junctionof the late 17th-century building with the 18th-century extension. Inside, the ground floor has been altered and the bottom of the stairsace is modern; above this, it has turned bulbous balusters, newels with attached half balusters, and a moulded handrail, all of late 19th-century date. There are several 19th-century marble fireplaces, moulded cornices and panelled doors.

Monument 354. An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of York. Volume V, the Central Area. P 193. London: RCHME

NMR Information

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

BF061024 49-51 LOW PETERGATE, 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.