York Historic Environment Record

Along with Blue Beck House, Verandah Cottages are among the few remaining buildings on the site of the now-demolished Clifton Hospital (of 1851, designed by George Gilbert Scott with William Bonython Moffatt, architects of national repute who worked prolifically in the asylum and workhouse fields). The wider, former hospital site is of importance due to it having been chosen for the new asylum as an airy, accessible site between Clifton Ings and Shipton Road, providing an extensive parkland setting. While the site has been lost due to extensive demolitions and unsympathetic redevelopment, the landscape of the site remains legible and distinctive in character; the extant buildings, including Verandah Cottages, punctuate the landscape orientating and referencing the history of the site. Verandah Cottages are likely to date from the 1860s-70s and provided family housing to members of staff of the Asylum. Designed in a cottage style with multiple gables, overhanging eaves, large modelled chimney stacks and detailing including finials and red brick dressings, they have an ornamental quality and of great charm and possess significant aesthetic design value. As a consequence of the heritage significance of Bluebeck House and Verandah Cottages identified, it is considered that both buildings qualify as non-designated heritage assets defined in the Planning Practice Guidance as “having a degree of significance meriting consideration in planning decisions”. (http://www.yorklocallist.org.uk)