York Historic Environment Record

NMR Information

1-5 Davygate is a 4,500 square metail retail development designed by Panter Hudspith Architects. Located next to St Helen's Church, it replaced a 1960s concrete building designed by John Poulson and extends through to Little Stonegate at the rear of the site, where it incorporates a former Methodist chapel. Apart from the church, the most dominant building in the immediate neighbourhood is the 1930s neo-Georgian building which curves alongside the opposite side of Davygate and houses the famous Betty's Tea Rooms.The problem for the architects was to design a building which would meet the requirements of modern retailing and would be acceptable on this sensitive site in a city which has often taken a conservative approach to design. At the same time, it was their ambition to produce a work of high quality modern architecture and avoid the obvious borrowings from historic styles. The architects decided that their building should defer to its setting in three ways. They set it on a shallow curve, which echoes the curve of the 1930s building opposite. They used the same stone, magnesian limestone, that the adjacent church is built from as the chief component of the street elevation and they also adopted a calm, low key approach with an horizontal emphasis. This was provided by the exposed steel frame of the building and the projecting cornice at eaves level. Control over the appearance of the whole building was maintained by providing a set of rules for the design of individual shopfronts laid down by the architects and imposed on all potential occupants.

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