York Historic Environment Record

Formerly known as: The Star Inn STONEGATE. Public house. Original building C16, with early C17 wing; further extensions of early C18 and late C19; refurbished c1890 and 1985.

MATERIALS: early structures timber-framed, now encased in render, pebble-dashed at front; right gable of orange brick in English garden-wall bond, ground floor rendered, remainder of right return of red brick in stretcher bond; C19 extension of orange-grey brick in English garden wall bond. Roofs of plain tile and pantile with brick coping and kneelers to main block; brick stacks.

EXTERIOR: 2-storey 3-window front with lower 2-storey wing projecting forwards at left. Part-glazed door with divided overlight at left end, segmental carriage arch closed by boarded doors at right end; between is 4-pane window with painted sill and applied diamond lattice leading. Wing has 3-light mullion and transom window, similarly glazed, on ground floor. First floor of main range has 4-pane sash windows with narrow painted sills: wing, two 8-pane Yorkshire sash windows. Eaves of both parts finished with bargeboards. Rear: 2-storey projecting gabled wing at right: remainder of rear largely concealed by later 1-storey extension. Ground floor of wing has 5-light mullion and transom window with applied lead glazing, first floor tripled 4-pane sashes. Left return: timber-frame exposed in gable end of front block; 16-pane sash on first floor. Right return: front block gable end to left of 2-storey wing. Gable end attic window is 2x1-pane Yorkshire sash beneath 1-course segmental brick arch. Wing has scattered altered fenestration, some retaining 1-course segmental brick arches.

INTERIOR: benches, stained glass and panelling from late C19 refitting survive throughout building, including original stained glass bar screen of 5 leaded lights by JW Knowles and Co; and fine pair of Art Nouveau door handles on folding servery door. Left end of front range retains C17 moulded ceiling beams. Early C18 staircase with turned balusters, square newels and ramped handrail: C17 square panelling reused beneath stairs: similar panelling fitted to dado in front right bar. In rear left bar, carved stone Tudor-arched fireplace with foliate spandrels.

(Dissertation for MA in Architectural Building Conservation: Davison Andrew P: "A Good House, fit for the purpose: Public House Design in York": De Montfort University: 1993-: 96; City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 223).

Listing NGR: SE6022352073 (Derived from English Heritage LB download dated: 22/08/2005)

(465) Ye Olde Starre Inne, No. 40, is situated behind No. 38 and has no street frontage; it is of two storeys and attics, partly timber framed but partly of brick, and the roofs are coverd with pantiles and plain tiles. The inn is said to have been in existance in the reigh of Henry VIII (T.P. Cooper, The Old Inns and Inn Signs of York (1897(, 24-5) and the core of the existing building is a two-bay range of 16th-century date; it has moulded ceiling beams on the ground floor and roof trusses have kerb-principals which formerly supported side-purlins. A second and slightly lower framed range adjoins the first at right angles and connects it with No. 38; it is of late 16th or early 17th-century date and is mostly rendered, though a little framing is exposed on the S.W. side. It contains a blocked fireplace with three-centred arch on the first floor. A new wing was built in the wearly 18th century; this is of red brick and included a staircase with turned balusters, square newels and ramped handrails. Another wing, containing large room, was added in the late 19th century.
1981. An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of York. Volume V, the Central Area. P 223. London: RCHME

No. 40 Ye Olde Starre Inne is behind No. 38 and reached by a passage. Early C18 brick with early C16 timber-framing. The sign across the street was first erected in 1733. (Pevsner N and Neave D 1972. The Buildings of England:Yorkshire: York and the East Riding, p233. London: Penguin)

NMR Information

List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. District of York, 14-MAR-1997

BF061189 YE OLDE STARRE INNE, 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, p223 (Monograph). SYO65.

(465) Ye Olde Starre Inne, No. 40, is situated behind No. 38 and has no street frontage; it is of two storeys and attics, partly timber framed but partly of brick, and the roofs are coverd with pantiles and plain tiles. The inn is said to have been in existance in the reigh of Henry VIII (T.P. Cooper, The Old Inns and Inn Signs of York (1897(, 24-5) and the core of the existing building is a two-bay range of 16th-century date; it has moulded ceiling beams on the ground floor and roof trusses have kerb-principals which formerly supported side-purlins. A second and slightly lower framed range adjoins the first at right angles and connects it with No. 38; it is of late 16th or early 17th-century date and is mostly rendered, though a little framing is exposed on the S.W. side. It contains a blocked fireplace with three-centred arch on the first floor. A new wing was built in the wearly 18th century; this is of red brick and included a staircase with turned balusters, square newels and ramped handrails. Another wing, containing large room, was added in the late 19th century.

Lisa Jane Howarth Liddy, MA, 2015, DOMESTIC OBJECTS IN YORK c.1400–1600 Consumption, Neighbourhood and Choice, pp211-212 (Unpublished document). SYO2195.

The Starre Inne on Stonegate, c.1581, was a large, modern and comfortably furnished home but also a modern, innovative and often luxurious inn, providing a home-away-from-home for its many guests, and as such is a worthy candidate for a case study of the material culture of domestic objects in late sixteenth-century York. While York’s inns almost certainly varied in quality, visitors to the late sixteenth-century Starre Inne, located on the central street of Stonegate within easy walking distance of the courts, the abbey, shops and markets, would have found well-kept and well-stocked premises expensively decorated according to the latest style and filled with high quality furniture and furnishings. New fashions and innovations, including glazed windows, a brick fireplace, wainscot panelling and carved, lockable doors, had all been added to the premises by this date. These features, together with the increase in available private dining areas, high-status, expensive bedding and well-appointed and luxuriously equipped common areas, illustrate the fashionability of the inn as a whole and the high value of many of the objects found within it.
595 See Chapter 1, 18–21.
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Thus, the inn of William Carter’s time was chosen for this case study not only because the relevant will, inventory and the inn itself all survive, but also because, as a business that specialized in providing accommodation and food for its customers, the assemblages associated with this building are entirely domestic in nature, and are therefore representative of, and comparable to, the majority of the households included in the sample, in a way that the contents of a particular metalworker’s or printer’s house, for example, might not be.
The inn’s great size is also an advantage. The large variety of rooms and spaces found on the premises is reflected in other properties, albeit on a lesser scale. While other homes may have been smaller, containing fewer specialized rooms than did the inn, examples of almost every named space (including the apple chamber, the kilnhouse and the cowhouse) appear in at least one other sampled inventory and contained similar assemblages of objects. The large number of sleeping chambers is also of benefit, providing examples of the range of furnishing and facilities available, not only within the inn, but in all better quality York homes of the period, including those in the sample for which inventories survive. As an inventory contains only those objects belonging to the deceased himself, in many homes there is the possibility that a number of objects, and even entire rooms, might be excluded if those objects, or the contents of that room, belonged to another adult, such as a spouse, parent or lodger. At the Starre Inne, only the clothing and paraphernalia of Carter’s wife and three servants (and the belongings of any guests in residence while the inventory was conducted) would have been omitted from his inventory; with the exception of items of little value, all of the furniture and other objects being within the building and its grounds would have been included in the inventory as either Carter’s own, or as part as of his business, allowing the fullest possible assemblage of objects to be considered.
Both historical and archaeological sources have been studied to investigate and illustrate the range and types of objects that occupied this late sixteenth-century home and inn. Documentary sources provide lists and descriptions of valued objects, many of which are only known through the historical documents as they are not present in the archaeology, either because the material from which they were made rarely survives burial (wood and fabric), because they would have been recycled or reused for other purposes when no longer of use (metal, fabric and wood for fuel), or precisely because they were so valuable and therefore treasured and passed down to loved ones instead of being discarded.
Conversely, the archaeological record provides examples of those objects which we know people of the period would have owned and used, often in great quantities – pottery being the most obvious example – but which were considered to be of so little financial value that they were often omitted from the documentary sources. Furthermore, written records occasionally refer to objects whose exact identification and appearance is unknown, due to the unfamiliar terminology of the period and the lack of descriptive detail included; archaeological finds, and also works of
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contemporary art, have been used to illustrate what these objects may have looked like, such as the proposed identification of the Humber ware and Hambleton-type ware cisterns with the three-gallon pot used to hold drink in the inn’s buttery.
Through the use of both the historical and archaeological data sets, this interdisciplinary case study of the Starre Inne, c.1581 has allowed for the examination of the entire assemblage of objects contained within this specific household unit at this particular moment in time. Dating the case study towards the end of the chosen period has allowed the inclusion and discussion of new objects, styles and architectural features, illustrating the increasing standards of luxury and comfort possible in higher status York homes in the 1580s that would not have been available at the beginning of the period.

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