York Historic Environment Record

House, later inn and stableyard; now Territorial Army office with drill hall attached. Early C19 house, converted to inn in mid C19; altered to military use 1872, retaining mid C19 inn front, and with drill hall added on stableyard with access from St Andrewgate. Drill hall by Gould and Fisher for the First West Yorkshire (York) Rifle Volunteer Battalion.

MATERIALS: Colliergate front of pink-grey mottled brick in Flemish bond with inn front and boxed gutter of timber; hipped pantile roof with brick stacks, one truncated. St Andrewgate front to drill hall of red brick in English bond, with bands and dressings of white brick, painted stone and glazed tile: asphalt roof with brick cornice stack at right end, and long skylights to front and rear.

EXTERIOR: Colliergate: 3-storey 1-window front. Inn front has surround of sunk-panel pilasters supporting dentil cornice on heavy scrolled and grooved consoles: door of 6 fielded panels to left and blocked doorway to right flank window of tripled 1-pane sashes over panelled riser. First floor window is shallow bow with three 15-pane sashes; on second floor, two 16-pane sashes with painted sills have painted flat arches largely obscured by modillioned guttering with fluted bowl rainwater head at right end.

St Andrewgate: 1-storey 9-bay front, on double chamfered plinth, articulated by plain pilasters, supporting coved cornice on moulded modillions and pierced parapet with flat coping. Central bay has double doors of shaped raised panels with wicket, in 2-centred arch of two orders on slender shafts with moulded bases, annulets and foliate capitals on high pedestals and with hoodmould on foliate corbel-stops above. Over flat door lintel, tiled tympanum bordered in bay leaves contains moulded white roses in panels. Above arch, scrolled stone panel with incised motto "PRO ARIS AND FOCIS". Flanking bays contain 2-light mullion and double transom windows in single order arched openings detailed as doorway: end left window has recessed door under. Window sills extend as sill band and hoodmoulds continue over pilasters as impost strings. Patterned tile set beneath each window in white brick band. Decaying foundation stone set in base of left end pilaster, inscribed: "STONE/ FOR THIS DRILL HALL AND ARMOUR (sic)/ FOR THE 1ST WEST YORKSHIRE (YORK)/ RIFLE VOLUNTEERS/ WAS LAID BY/..."

INTERIOR: not inspected. The drill hall is a new addition to the list. (City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 121; ).
Listing NGR: SE6047751942

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

NMR Information

613515 Architectural Survey Investigation by RCHME/EH Architectural Survey
BF060494 TERRITORIAL ARMY HALL, YORK File of material relating to a site or building. This material has not yet been fully catalogued.

Information from Heritage Impact Assessment '28a Colliergate and Drill Hall, St Andrewgate' Lichfield and Partners

The Drill Hall was designed by Gould and Fisher for First West Yorkshire Rifle Volunteer Battalion and built on the site of Old Sandhill Inn and stableyard in 1872. No.28a was altered to military use in 1872 and linked to the function of the Drill Hall. The rear portion of 28a, including stairs and circulation routes, was likely added at this time and has had many subsequent modern alterations.

The original internal arrangements of the Drill Hall and its ancillary buildings are unknown, but plans from 1984 show that during Army occupation, the Drill Hall had been rearranged and subdivided into offices, storage and mess rooms in the 20th century. At No.28a, the Officers Mess was on the first floor and the caretaker’s accommodation was on the second floor. The Sergeants’ Mess was in associated outbuildings as was a rifle range, with stores on the ground floor.

The Drill Hall and No.28a were purchased in 1994 by Barnitts and the interiors were substantially remodelled to convert it to a department store. The Colliergate shopfront was refurbished but retaining some pilasters and a section of architrave from the 19th-century shopfront.

Most surviving fabric in the interior of the Drill Hall and the rear portion of 28a Colliergate is
unremarkable in character and of limited architectural interest. Their special interest has already been diminished by modern alteration and that incremental deterioration has rendered the earlier plan forms difficult to read. The proposal involves some removal of historic fabric to accommodate viable and high-quality residential units.

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

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