York Historic Environment Record

Formerly known as: Nos.18 AND 19 BLAKE STREET. Two shops; boundary wall approximately 20 metres long attached to rear of No.1. C16 structure remodelled and extended in early C18; further later alterations.

MATERIALS: C16 building timber-framed, refronted in red-brown and orange brick in Flemish bond with stone coped brick parapet; painted and chamfered plinth to No.3; tiled roof to Nos 1 and 3 parallel to street, hipped at right end, to No.5 hipped at front. Brick stacks, some rebuilt. Boundary wall of re-used magnesian limestone.

EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attics; 11-bay front. No.1 has shopfront of plain pilasters with imposts, frieze incorporating blind box and flat moulded cornice: plate glass window with glazed door to left. No.3 has pedimented doorcase, with steps up to door of 6 raised and fielded panels with radial fanlight over moulded transom in plain reveal: flanking windows are single plate glass lights with painted stone sills. No.5 has plate glass window in moulded surround with moulded cornice breaking forward at each end on grooved consoles. 6-panel door at right end. First floor has three 12-pane sashes to left, four 16-pane sashes in centre, to right two 12-pane sashes flanked by blind windows: most have flat arches of orange gauged brick, all painted stone sills. 4-course raised brick bands to first floor, broken by shop cornices, and to parapet. Rear: gabled wings visible, some with exposed timber-framing on jettied upper floors. No.3 has round-headed radial glazed staircase window.

INTERIOR: not fully inspected. Ground floor of 3 retains moulded beams including one in former stairhall enriched with plaster Greek key mouldings. Open well staircase has open string, 2 turned balusters to each stair and moulded ramped handrail wreathed at foot. RCHM record late C17 staircase and two rooms lined with early C17 panelling in No.1; in No.3, first-floor front room with early C17 panelling and bolection moulded fireplace; in No.5, domed ceiling with roof light originally lighting circular staircase. Other rooms in Nos 3 and 5 have "Early Georgian" fireplaces and cornices.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: boundary wall is approximately 2 metres high.

(City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 107-8).
Listing NGR: SE6016052065

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

Houses, Nos. 1, 3, 5 (Fig. 62), form a complex presenting an 18th-century appearance to the street, but which contains remnants of the structure of a substantial timber-framed building of the 16th century. This occupied the major parts of Nos. 1 and 3, and consisted of four parallel ranges, each originally gabled to the street and still, though partly modified, gabled at the rear. The two central ranges, each two bays deep from front to back, have spans of 17 to 18 ft. and are three-storeyed, though the top floor may be a later addition; the two outer ranges, of two storeys only, spanned 13 to 14 ft., and the N. range, which forms No. 1, projected further to the rear, being three bays deep. Though most of the framing has been covered up or removed in later alterations, there are several moulded timbers visible inside, showing that the building must have been exceptional in the city in its degree of elaboration. In the early 17th century the northernmost range was extended still further to the rear with an additional bay. In the second quarter of the 18th century there was a major remodelling, when the front elevation was rebuilt in brick, the roof mostly reconstructed and a new staircase added at the rear; at the same time No. 5, at the S. end of the complex, was built, possibly incorporating some remains of an earlier timber-framed building. In the 19th and 20th centuries, alterations at several periods have included both some remodelling of the interior and the building of further additions at the rear; part of the ground floor has been gutted for use as a shop, but the central part is interesting as one of the few Georgian frontages in the city centre retaining sashed windows on the ground floor.

The front elevation is of common brick in Flemish bond with red brick dressings; it is eleven bays long in all, four of these being in the differently aligned S. end, which corresponds to No. 5. On the ground floor are two modern shop fronts, but in the centre is a doorway flanked by two windows to each side; the door is of six fielded panels and the door-case has plain pilasters and a triangular pediment. Some of the windows on the first floor have been widened and two have been blocked or built blind. There is one rainwater head, inscribed BB 1765, and behind the parapet are several hipped roofs covered with plain tiles. The rear elevation is very irregular because of later additions and little of the original building is exposed, except part of one of the two central ranges; of this, the second floor only is jettied out and the gable framing consists of studs above and below the collar, with the ends of clasped-purlins exposed; the gable of the other three-storeyed central range is faced in brick, though with the framing intact behind. The 18th-century block, which partly covers these two gables, has a round-headed staircase window. The framing of the projecting E. end of the N. range stands on a brick wall, 2¾ ft. high, and is mostly plastered over, except on the gable-end wall where the jettied first floor has fairly close studding and straight braces.

Inside, the most significant parts of the original building which can be seen are a moulded ceiling beam across the central entrance hall, moulded door jambs in small lobbies at the rear of both the ground and first floors, and the roof structure of No. 1, where the roof trusses have deep collars clasping the side-purlins. The attic floor of No. 1 is clearly a later insertion, perhaps of the late 17th century, which is the date of the staircase with turned balusters. The first-floor room in the early 17th-century extension at the rear of No. 1 is lined with contemporary panelling and the ground-floor room below is said to have similar panelling, now covered with hardboard sheets. The entrance to No. 3 leads through a passage to the early Georgian staircase at the rear; this has an open string with two turned balusters on each step (Fig. 11s), and a ramped and moulded handrail, and on the soffit of the beam supporting the landing is bold Greek key decoration. The two rooms flanking the entrance passage were refitted in the early 19th century. On the first floor, one room at the front has early 17th-century panelling and a bolection-moulded fireplace surround of c. 1700; some other rooms of both No. 3 and No. 5 have early Georgian fireplaces and cornices. No. 5 is the most altered part of the complex; a circular-planned staircase was inserted in the early 19th century and, though it has since been removed, the domed ceiling with central rooflight remains. Apart from No. 1, the roofs were mainly rebuilt in the early 18th century, re-using earlier timbers; a post with greatly enlarged head and downward straight brace to one side was originally part of the rear wall but is now within a room sealed off above the stair landing of No. 3. A covered yard at the rear has to N. and S. magnesian limestone walls, 7–8 ft. high, which were built, probably in the 16th century, of reused stone, some of it with 12th-century diagonal tooling.

Monument 70; City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 107-8

NMR Information

BF060359 HOUSE AND SON, 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.

LHL Group, 2009, Photographic Record in Respect of 1 Blake Street, York (Unpublished document). SYO1156.

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