York Historic Environment Record

Formerly known as: No.3 BLAKE STREET. Two houses, now offices. 1789-90 incorporating earlier C18 house as rear wing; late C20 alterations and restoration. By Peter Atkinson senior for Mrs E Woodhouse.

MATERIALS: front house of red brick in Flemish bond on rendered plinth, rear of buff-orange brick in random bond; timber doorcase and eaves cornice; slate roof with brick stacks. Rear house of orange-brown brick in Flemish bond, ground floor rebuilt in mottled brick; pantile roof.

EXTERIOR: 4 storey, 4-bay front. Steps up to pedimented doorcase of engaged fluted Corinthian columns, fluted frieze and dentilled cornice and panelled reveals; recessed door of 6 fielded panels in fluted borders beneath radial fanlight in fluted round arch with moulded impost band. Ground, first and second floor windows are 12-pane sashes; those on third floor squat 4-pane sashes. Ground floor windows have concrete sill band, first floor painted stone sill band; others have painted stone sills; all have flat arches of gauged brick. Broad first floor band of painted stone. Dentilled and modillioned moulded cornice returned at each end.

Rear: 4 storeys and cellars; 3 bays, right end obscured by lower 3-storey wing. Cellars have segment-arched openings beneath iron grilles. Door of 6 raised and fielded panels with radial fanlight in round-arched opening at left: one original 12-pane sash window remains in centre, other ground floor windows altered. First floor has two 16-pane sash windows: second floor 4-pane sash to left, 16-pane sash to right: third floor three squat windows, two with 6-pane sashes, one with 4-pane sash. All windows have segmental arches of orange brick. Brick dentil eaves course with inverted bell rainwaterhead at left end.

Wing: 3 storeys, 3 bays. 6-panel door with divided overlight at centre of ground floor: no windows. Windows on first floor are 12-pane sashes, on second floor unequal 9-pane sashes, all with segmental brick arches, some with original glazing bars and glazing. 3-course raised brick bands to first and second floors. Inverted bell rainwater head at left end of guttering.

INTERIOR: front house: blind arcading lines entrance passage on each side, continuing beyond stairhall to back door: stairhall approached through round arches at each end. Open string staircase with slender turned balusters, shaped treadends and moulded and ramped handrail wreathed at foot on stout turned newel rises to attics: top lit through hipped glazed lantern. Some original fireplaces survive; one in first floor front room to left has fluted pilaster jambs: one in rear first floor room decorated with composition mouldings.

Rear wing: full height staircase with Chinese fret balustrade and square newels. First floor rooms retain plain fireplaces with moulded cornice: second floor rooms have plain stone fireplaces, one painted, one in later architrave. The Chinese fret staircase in this building is the most complete to survive in York.

(City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 110-111).
Listing NGR: SE6015451991

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

House, No. 18, of four storeys and cellars, has walls of brick and slated roofs. It was built in or shortly after 1789 by Mrs. Elizabeth Woodhouse who, in that year, had bought the site with an earlier house on it. At the rear, a three-storey wing was formerly a separate house, built in 1769–70 by Thomas Milner (Deeds). A set of six undated drawings for the new house by the architect Peter Atkinson senior, in possession of the owners, shows that it was initially designed as a three-storey house and the additional floor is an afterthought, indicated in the margin of one sheet. The floor plans differ in some details from those eventually adopted. A photograph taken in the late 19th century shows that the ground-floor windows were then round-headed, and later they were replaced by a large shop window. In recent years the wall was restored, with square-headed windows, and the house is now occupied as offices

The front elevation, four bays wide, is built of fine red brick in Flemish bond. The windows have hung sashes in flush frames and flat brick arches. At first-floor level is a stone band, and the windows of this floor have a continuous sill-band. The six-panel front door has a half-round fanlight and engaged portico of fluted Corinthian columns supporting a pediment with fluted frieze. At the eaves is a timber block cornice with dentils. The back elevation, in random bond, has segmental-headed windows and a corbelled brick cornice. The wing of 1770 has a three-bay elevation facing N.W., of brick in Flemish bond, with plat-bands at first and second-floor levels. The windows have segmental heads and hung sashes; those on the ground floor are blocked.

The front entrance passage has blank arcading on the side walls and leads to the top-lit staircase, which rises around an open well through the full height of the building; the balustrade has three slender turned balusters on each step. A passage leading onward to the rear yard has similar blank arcading, but otherwise the ground floor has been altered. The upper storeys have four rooms on each floor which generally retain original six-fielded-panel doors and moulded architraves; three fireplaces have fluted side pilasters and one, in the larger first-floor back room, has composition ornament in the style of Thomas Wolstenholme. The principal rooms have moulded cornices. In the cellar, one room has a brick vaulted ceiling. The house of 1770, forming the rear wing, has a central staircase with Chinese fret balustrading; on the first floor are two original fireplaces. In the rear yard is a lead cistern inscribed IW 1767.

Monument 77; City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 110-111

NMR Information

613515 Architectural Survey Investigation by RCHME/EH Architectural Survey

BF060363 MUNBY AND SCOTT SOLICITORS, 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.