York Historic Environment Record

Formerly known as: No.6 HIGH PETERGATE. House, now reading room. Late C17 with early C14 origins; rear altered and partly rebuilt in early C19; C20 shopfront. Front of painted brick in English garden-wall and stretcher bonds; rear of red-brown brick, part rendered; steeply pitched pantile roof with plain tile verge; brick stacks.

EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attic; 3-window front. Shopfront framed in plain pilasters beneath plain fascia and minimal cornice: door at right end is glazed and panelled with bordered overlight, recessed between small-pane windows. Remainder of shop window has small-pane glazing with some top-hung lights. First floor windows are 12-pane sashes: attic window a raking dormer with 2-light casement window. Rear: outer wall has length of 3-course raised brick first floor band at left end: behind, rebuilt wall has 2x12-pane Yorkshire sash window on first floor.

INTERIOR: first floor middle room has small fireplace with basket grate. In attic, the only virtually complete scissor-brace roof truss in a minor building in York survives between left end and centre bays.

(City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 181). Listing NGR: SE6014852226

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

House, No. 8, of two storeys and attics, has brick walls and pantiled roofs. The fabric is basically of the late 17th century, with many later alterations, but it contains the remarkable survival of an early 14th-century scissor-braced roof truss, indicating that this is the site of an important mediaeval building, probably a hall, aligned along the street. It belonged to the prebendary of Fenton. The interior planning is irregular and probably of fairly late date; apart from the roof structure, there are no fittings earlier than the 19th century.

The sole 14th-century truss is 12½ ft. from the N.W. end of the range, and has a span of about 20 ft., not exactly measurable. Though not complete, it is quite well preserved and consists of rafters, braces and collar, all about 5 in. square in section. The braces and collar are halved over each other and have notched lap joints with the rafters. The roof to the S.E. of the truss is of the late 17th century, and the N.W. end modern. The front wall has a modern shop front, and sash windows on the first floor. The brickwork is painted, and contains later and modern patchings. In the back wall, a large opening the full height to the eaves was made in the early 19th century, and a new wall built behind to make a small open area, probably for Francis Bulmer, a merchant, who converted what was then a coach-house and stable into a countinghouse and warehouse (YML, wl; wm).

City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 181. Monument 320

NMR Information

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

BF061005 8 HIGH 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.