York Historic Environment Record

Formerly known as: Nos.2, 3 AND 4 CONEY STREET. Four houses, one pair and two single, amalgamated to form department store: garden wall attached to rear, between Nos 5 and 7. Early C18 with C19 rear extensions; alterations and shopfront c1960.

EXTERIOR: 3-storey front; 3 windows to No.3; 4 windows to No.5; 6 windows to No.7. Shopfront extends through ground floor of all buildings. Windows on second floor of No.3 are 12-pane sashes, three at right end C18, with painted flat arches of gauged brick. Elsewhere windows have been altered to various styles, several being 2-light bordered casements, and two on first floor of No.5 in raised architraves with painted flat arches. Plain parapet to all three buildings; inverted bell rainwater heads decorated with winged cherub heads to Nos 3 and 5, dated 1775 and 1770 respectively.

Rear: garden wall between Nos 5 and 7, raked-up and varying in height from approximately 2.0 metres to 4.0 metres; terrace garden to No.5 built against one side, and outbuildings to No.7 constructed against the other side.

INTERIOR: not inspected.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: garden wall of orange-red brick in stretcher bond, with moulded stone coping, partly covered in asphalt. RCHM record plaster ceilings surviving on ground floor of No.5 (underceiled), and at rear of first floor of No.7. Nos 3 and 5 have C18 staircases.

(City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 125). Listing NGR: SE6014851886

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

Houses, Nos. 3, 5, 7, formerly four dwellings with No. 5 forming a pair, stand on the site of a 16th-century house belonging to the Darleys of Aldby and Buttercrambe. The present houses are mainly of the first half of the 18th century but incorporate parts of an earlier house, of which three decorated plaster ceilings survived into the 19th century. The early 18th-century rebuilding may have been carried out by Francis Taylor, who acquired the property from the Thompson family, goldsmiths, in 1722. Taylor left the property to his nephew Francis Meek, who added a range at the back of No. 3, but No. 7 is said to have been refronted in 1758 and to have carried a rainwater head bearing a badge of the Brooke family. Later alterations and additions may have been carried out by William Siddall, woollen draper and merchant tailor, or by Robert Sinclair who acquired the property in 1817. Drastic alterations have been made in modern times to convert the houses to commercial use, including insertion of shop windows on the ground floor and removal of the fourth storey of No. 3 and the pitched roofs of Nos. 5 and 7. Only a part of one decorated ceiling is now visible. The heraldry relating to the Darleys described by Davies has been destroyed or concealed. (Davies, 57–63; YCA, Acc. 21, Deeds; G. Benson, Pamphlet on Bishophill).

The front elevations, of brick, have been much altered. No. 3 originally comprised five bays, No. 5 six, and No. 7 six; No. 7 has stone quoins. All are now of three storeys, with modern parapets. Inside, an elaborate plaster ceiling of c. 1600 remains at the rear of the first floor of No. 7 (Plate 165). This is by no means complete, and could possibly have formed a part of the heraldic ceiling described by Davies; it has a heavily moulded cornice, which breaks forward at intervals, and a background of scrolled foliage with vine, acorns, roses and birds. At intervals strapwork encloses male and female heads. The frieze has a similar background, with heads, a shield, a heart and a double-headed eagle. The fine early 17th-century ceiling on the ground floor of No. 5 (Plate 164), with a geometrical division formed with moulded ribs and decorative motifs, and the moulded cornice continued along the dividing beam with vine enrichment to the soffit, is covered by a modern underdrawn ceiling. The only other fittings of note to survive are the staircases of the second quarter of the 18th century in No. 3 and in the S.E. part of No. 5.

Monument 137; City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 125

NMR Information

613515 Architectural Survey Investigation by RCHME/EH Architectural Survey

BF060497 3-7 CONEY STREET, 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.

On Site Archaeology, 2022/2023, Southwest of Coney Street (Unpublished document). SYO2947.