York Historic Environment Record

Formerly known as: Nos.41, 42 AND 44 CONEY STREET. Three houses, now shops and offices. c1500, with C18 alteration; Nos 20 and 22 extended in C19; C20 modernisation and extension at rear of No.16. Timber-framed, plastered and whitewashed: pantile roofs with brick stacks.

EXTERIOR: 3 parallel ranges, 3 bays deep. 3 storeys and attics, jettied on upper floors; 1 gabled bay to each range. No.16 has shopfront framed in timber pilaster piers and moulded cornice with attached rosettes. Plate glass windows over brick risers flank glazed double doors with Tudor arched head set in canted screen of linenfold panels. On first floor, canted bay oriel window with 8- and 16-pane sashes beneath moulded cornice: unequal 12-pane sash on second floor. Entrance to No.18 in extension in New Street. No.20 has shopfront of panelled pilasters, wide fascia and moulded cornice, with glazed door to left of plate glass window. On first floor is similar oriel window with 20-pane centre sash, and on second floor paired 9-pane lights. Shopfront to No.22 has grooved, tapering pilasters and wide fascia between heavy coved brackets, with plate glass door in panelled doorway. First and second floor windows are 1-pane sashes, and attic has 2x6-pane horizontal sliding sash.

INTERIOR: RCHM record early C19 staircase in Nos 16-18; C18 fireplace on first floor of No.20, and early C19 fittings; in No.22, two early C17 panelled doors and C18 staircase.

(City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 122).
Listing NGR: SE6018451838

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



130) Houses, Nos. 16–22 (even), a range of three, standing at the corner of New Street, are of three storeys and attics, of timber-framed construction with pantiled roofs. They were built in the 15th or early 16th century, each gabled to the street and three bays deep; the interior arrangement is not clear but there is no evidence visible of any original partitions in each house or of the positions of staircases. In the 18th century the front was plastered and the windows altered, and in the 19th century an addition was built in brick at the rear of Nos. 20 and 22. Nos. 16, 18, which in the 19th century had been occupied by Henry Sotheran, a well-known bookseller, was renovated in 1927 when the plaster rendering was removed and period-style windows inserted in the ground floor, though these were replaced by plate-glass windows in a second renovation in 1960. Nos. 20 and 22 have not had extensive modern restorations and retain on the upper floors many Georgian fittings and partitions.

The framing is exposed externally on the two street frontages of Nos. 16, 18; the jettied floors of the gable-end to Coney Street have lodged sill-plates and the wall framing has pairs of curved downward braces; on the second floor the upper braces are exceptional in extending the whole storey height between sill-plate and tie-beam; the gable has a braced crown-post on a cambered tie-beam and cross-bracing to the rafters. The side to New Street, not originally an external wall, has posts with steep upward braces except for those at the corner with the jettied front, which have downward braces; between the posts are widely-spaced studs. The windows have hung sashes and include a canted oriel on the first floor of the Coney Street elevation.

The interior retains an early 19th-century staircase with square balusters, and a few Georgian architraves; several chimney-pieces of the latter period were removed in 1960. One original internal roof truss survives, similar to the one in the gable-end but without the secondary braces between tie-beam and rafters; the crown-post supports braced collar-purlins. Though only a little framing is directly visible inside Nos. 20 and 22, there is enough to indicate that it follows the same pattern as that of Nos. 16, 18. The fronts of these two houses have modern shop windows and otherwise are plastered and have sash windows; the back wall is mostly rebuilt in brick or covered by the 19th-century extension. Inside, No. 20 has mostly early 19th-century fittings but there is one stone fireplace surround of the second quarter of the 18th century on the first floor; No. 22 has two early 17th-century panelled doors, and the staircase which serves it, of the mid or later 18th century, is in the adjacent house, No. 24.

City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 122

In 1997, the installation of a new shopfront was undertaken on 20 Coney Street. In 2016, works were carried out to reinstate and restore the front façade following repair of the timber frame and infill panels, resulting the building in its current form.
New roof and repairs due to water ingress to No.20 planned in 2022 (See attached documents).



The Oxford Literary Guide to the British Isles states that Percy Shelley stayed at 20 Coney St in October 1811. Shelley's letters state that he was stayed at Miss Dancer's, Coney Street, and from contemporary local newspapers that Miss Dancer was a haberdasher and perfumer on Coney Street. However, she's only listed in the older trade directories before they started including building numbers. (member of public Pers Comm. 2024)



NMR Information:

Full description
(SE 60215185-O.S 1/2500, 1963)

1. CONEY STREET 5343 (north-east side)
Nos 16 to 22 (even) (formerly listed as Nos 41, 42 and 44) SE 6051 NW 28/170 14.6.54 II* GV

2. C15 or early C16. Altered and restored. Timber frame, exposed to Nos 16 and 18 (ie, both street frontages) but stuccoed over elsewhere; 3 storeys plus attic; double oversailing upper storeys, including north-west side to New Street; 3 gables; 4 late C18 windows, including one oriel to left. The ground storey is a modern reconstruction.

(RCHM Vol. V, Monument 130.) List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. p78 City of York, June 1983

613515 Architectural Survey Investigation by RCHME/EH Architectural Survey
BF060502 16-22 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.