York Historic Environment Record

Numbers 8-12 Micklegate, a pair of early 17th century houses, altered circa 1700 and again to form a house and a shop circa 1860. The buildings have since been demolished and the site is occupied by a hotel.

BF060795 8-12 MICKLEGATE, YORK File of material relating to a site or building.

Information derived from the NMR

Nos. 16, 18, have been formed from an important timber-framed structure erected in the late 16th or early 17th century with three full storeys and semi-attics above, fully jettied to N. and S. There were few contemporary buildings in York of such large size. An abstract of title (York Co-operative Society, held by the Co-operative Bank, Leeds) shows that in 1565 the property comprised 'messuages and a garden' occupied by Margaret Catton, widow, when the freehold was sold by William Harrynton to William Winterburne, armourer. Winterburne died in 1586/7 and by 1602 his widow, who had remarried, sold the house to William Cowper of York, innholder, and his wife Rosamond. Cowper, free of York in 1561, was already the occupier, and when the freehold passed to Thomas Herbert, in 1629, another innholder Lancelot Geldart (free, 1621) was in occupation. Presumably the house had been built as a major inn under a building lease, perhaps c. 1590. The freehold descended in the Herbert family until 1711, when it passed to Richard Reynolds, who in 1727 sold it to James Robinson, an apothecary. The property was for sale in 1764 (York Courant, 13 March), when part was occupied by Mrs. Robinson and under-tenants, and part vacant. At this time the upper part of the front was cut back and a brick façade built, the property divided into two parts, each fitted with its own staircase, and new chimneybreasts inserted. This work is dated to 1764 by a rainwater head bearing the crest of Walker, a greyhound sejant, collared, referring to the family of the Rev. John Walker, rector of St. Denys 1797–1813, who died in No. 16 on 25 August 1813 at an advanced age (York Courant, 30 August). The freehold in 1801 passed to William Cobb (YCA, E.95, f. 247v.) who had already acquired No. 18, which was occupied for a time early in the 19th century by Peter Atkinson junior, the architect (YCA, E.96, f. 201v.; E.97, f. 185v.). No. 16 was bought in 1814 by William Price, grocer, who occupied it for a time; later occupiers were Amos Coates, surgeon, Sheriff of York 1833–4 (YCA, E.98, f. 169v.) and Henry Keyworth, surgeon (YCL, St. John's Rate Books; Directories). In 1824 the adjacent Pack Horse Inn, to W., took over No. 18 to extend its premises (YCA, E.97, f. 185v.). During the 19th century the front of No. 18 was stuccoed and the upper parts of both houses covered with Roman cement.

On the front to Micklegate (Plate 52) No. 16 is faced with 18th-century brickwork above a later shop-front. No. 18 has been covered with early 19th-century stucco. The back wall (Plate 52) retains the jetties of the second and attic floors, and has hung-sash windows mostly of the 18th century. The remodelling of c. 1764 formed two houses each with a staircase (Plate 86) placed transversely between front and back rooms, the staircase probably occupying the site of original chimneys. One of the first-floor rooms has an original enriched plaster ceiling (Plate 51) curtailed when the front was cut back. Other fittings are of the 18th and early 19th centuries. In the roofs original collar-beam trusses remain with principals rising from short sole-pieces like the stub ends of tie-beams (see p. lxxiv and Fig. 13j). Demolished 1964.

RCHME III Monument 58

RCHME, 1972, RCHME City of York Volume III South-west of the Ouse (Monograph). SYO64.

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