York Historic Environment Record

Houses, Nos. 39–45 (odd), were built as a terrace in 1748 by Thomas Griffith; the site of Nos. 39–43 had been a garden and had a frontage of only 55 ft.; No. 45 replaced an earlier building giving a wider frontage. Griffith occupied No. 45 himself; the other houses were let (YCA, E93, 195, 213, 241). At the back of No. 45 a substantial block was added c. 1800 and late in the 19th century Griffith's house was pulled down and replaced by a new, fourstorey house, retaining the structure of 1800 behind it. Nos. 41 and 43 are now combined as one property and divided into flats.

The street front, of three storeys above a basement, is terminated at each end by stone quoins and the storeys are divided by stone bands; the quoins comprise small stones flush with the brickwork alternating with larger projecting stones. At the eaves is a bold timber cornice, with modillions, carrying a concealed gutter; part has been restored. The design is now interrupted by the four-storey front of the later No. 45 but the quoins of the original N.W. angle remain in position. The door-case to the entrance to No. 45 is however of mid 18th-century date, and is probably one of the original doorcases reused. For Nos. 39–43 there are now only two doorways, one with a semicircular fanlight in an open pediment of c. 1800 and one with a late 19th-century door-case.

The fenestration has been altered so that only No. 41 now has windows all of the original size; they have flat arches of gauged brick with keystones; the sashes have lost the original glazing bars and early 19th-century wrought-iron guards have been added to the first-floor windows. The S.E. end has a double gable with parapets concealing the end of the double-span roof. The back has been much altered. Projecting behind No. 45 is the four-storey block of c. 1800 with two very large hung-sash windows to the first floor; these and the other smaller windows all have flat arches of gauged rubbed brick, very markedly splayed.

Nos. 41 and 43 were joined into one in c. 1800 and, together with No. 39, were extensively refitted, but on the top floor No. 39 retains an original fireplace and panelling. No. 41 retains an original panelled dado in the front room on the ground floor and a simple cornice in the room behind; in No. 43 the front room on the ground floor and the saloon above are both lined with original fielded panels above plain dados. The staircase of No. 41 has been removed but most of the original staircases remain in Nos. 39 and 43, with open strings and turned balusters. Otherwise fittings are mostly early 19th-century with free use of reeding and mouldings of symmetrical section combined with composition decoration almost certainly by Thomas Wolstenholme.

'Houses: Bootham', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in City of York, Volume 4, Outside the City Walls East of the Ouse (London, 1975), pp. 54-63. Monument 41

NMR Information

BF060388 39-45 BOOTHAM, YORK File of material relating to a site or building. This material has not yet been fully catalogued.

RCHME, 1975, RCHME Volume 4, Outside the City Walls East of the Ouse (Monograph). SYO2424.

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

York Archaeological Trust, 2020, 39 Bootham (Unpublished document). SYO2451.