York Historic Environment Record

Shop and offices. Early C19; No.15 modernised, and No.17 rebuilt, in C20, re-using early C18 column, early C19 bow window and eaves cornice. No.15 of orange brick in Flemish bond, with marble faced office front, timber eaves cornice, and slate hipped roof with brick stack: No.17 of red brick in stretcher bond with painted stone column.

EXTERIOR: 4 storeys; 2-window front to No.15, 1-window front to No.17. Shopfront to No.15 has glazed double doors recessed between plate glass windows, all with semicircular fanlights. Ground floor of No.17 has flat carriage arch with reset Tuscan column forming the right jamb, and plate glass shopfront. First floor windows to No.15 are 3-light shallow canted bays with 1-pane sashes, fluted friezes and moulded cornices: re-used window to No.17 is shallow tripartite bay with 16-pane centre sash between 8-pane sashes, beaded panel frieze and plain cornice. Windows on second floor of both buildings are 12-pane sashes with flat arches of gauged brick; on third floor, unequal 9-pane sashes: all have painted stone sills. Dentilled modillion eaves cornice, returned at right end of No.15, continued across No.17 beneath plain parapet, masking roof. Inverted bell rainwater head at right end of No.15.

INTERIORS: not inspected: RCHM record the following. No.15 has mid C19 fireplace and moulded cornice in first floor front room. No.17 has early C19 fireplace and moulded cornice in first floor front room.

HISTORICAL NOTE: No.15 was built as offices for the newspaper 'The York Courant', continuing in this use until 1991. Re-used features in No.17 survive from the George Inn, formerly occupying the site and demolished 1869.

(City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 126). Listing NGR: SE6018451838

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

(141) Office, No. 15, of four storeys and cellars, was built for the York Courant probably between 1789 and 1809 during the proprietorship of George Peacock. In 1838 it also housed Hargrove's Library, which was at that time 'recently opened' (New Guide, 64).

The front elevation is of brick in Flemish bond and has, over a modern shop front, two shallow canted bay windows with fluted friezes and modern sashes; the windows on the floors above have flush frames and retain original sashes with glazing bars. The timber block cornice returns several feet along the N.W. side wall, and the low-pitched slated roof is hipped to front and rear.

Inside, the ground floor is wholly modernised, and on the first floor all the original partition walls have been removed, though the plan can be partly recognised from surviving mid 19th-century cornices. There are a few original fittings, and on the third floor, where the plan is better preserved, the position of the top-lit former secondary staircase can be identified.

(142) No. 17 is a modern office building which retains on the ground floor a stone Tuscan column surviving from the former George Inn, demolished in 1869 (Benson, iii, 61); on the first floor is a reset sashed bow window taken from the same building. The inn, originally a mediaeval timber-framed building, was formerly known as The Bear, later The Golden Lion, and became The George in 1614 (Davies, 63–5). The S.E. part of the inn, on the site now occupied by part of a modern department store, No. 19, in 1716 was given a new brick facade, supported on stone columns (YAJ, XIV, 446); it retained a 15th-century timber porch with a ribbed vault and a boss carved with a Pelican in Piety (Cave, Plate XXXI) which had probably been brought from elsewhere and is now in the Yorkshire Museum. The N.W. end of the frontage, where No. 17 now stands, was probably built soon after 1614; it had a jettied and gabled elevation distinguished by ornate pargetting (Cave, Plate V) and in 1810 was rebuilt in brick (YCA, M17A), also supported on stone columns, one of which is that surviving. Inside was a large panelled room with a decorated plaster ceiling and heraldic glass of 1661–8.

Monuments 141 and 142; City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 126

NMR Information

613515 Architectural Survey Investigation by RCHME/EH Architectural Survey

BF060501 YORKSHIRE EVENING PRESS, YORK File of material relating to a site or building. This material has not yet been fully catalogued.

No. 17 contained a public air raid shelter during WWII to hold 94 people.

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

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