York Historic Environment Record

House; now offices, headquarters of York Medical Society and flats. Late C16, incorporating remains of earlier structures, including probable crosswing of No.2 Coffee Yard (Barley Hall) (qv); alterations, extensions and subdivisions of mid C17, mid C18, early C19 and 1870; restored 1976. Original building timber-framed.

MATERIALS: entrance front rendered with planted timber-framing; wing to left has ground floor in stretcher bond brick, first floor of incised render; wing to right is orange-grey brick in Flemish bond. Rear encased in orange-brown brick, some Flemish bond, most random bond; first floor of one block rendered. Plain tile and pantile roofs with brick stacks.

EXTERIOR: entrance front: gabled main block of 2 storeys and attic, between projecting wings, 2 storeys to left, 2 storeys and attic to right. Main block ground floor filled by stone porch with heavy dentilled cornice and truncated moulded pediment: beneath are paired 6-panel doors with divided overlights, approached by short flight of steps. 16-pane sash on first floor: two tiers of 8-pane Yorkshire sashes to attic. To right, in angle with wing, is an embattled rainwater head dated 1590. Left wing: paired 12-pane sash windows on ground floor: 24-pane sash to first floor. Ground floor of gable end has tripartite window: first floor has canted oriel with 3:6:3-pane lights.

Right wing: scattered ground floor fenestration. At left end, tall round-arched radial-glazed staircase sash with painted stone sill. Ground floor of gable end obscured by yard wall: first floor incorporates earlier timber-framed gable truss on first floor. Rear to garden: two gabled bays in centre, each of 2 storeys with attics, right one with jettied attic and plain bargeboards on brackets; to left, 3-storey gabled wing with 1-storey extension projecting at front; to right, single 2-storey bay terminating in 3-storey block. Centre bays have margin-glazed and flush panelled door with radial fanlight to right of centre: on each side are two 12-pane sash windows on ground and first floors, those on first floor shorter: attic windows are squat 6-pane sashes: all have painted stone sills.

Extension to left has canted French doors in glazed and panelled screen in re-entrant with wing, and two 12-pane sash windows. Wing has 16-pane sash windows and C20 openings on first and second floors. To right, link bay has 4-pane fixed light with timber lintel on ground floor; on first floor, canted bay window with small-pane casements. End block has C20 tripartite windows on each floor in gable end, and 2-course raised brick bands. Tumbled brick gable surmounted by corbelled-out gabled dovecote. Return to garden has flight of brick steps leading to C20 first floor doorway. Right return: restored inserted 8-light ground floor window with ovolo moulded mullions and transoms.

INTERIOR: not fully inspected. Left side. Ground floor: mid C18 staircase has open string, slender turned balusters, two to a tread, and moulded ramped-up handrail, wreathed at foot around turned newel: matching dado rail to stairwell. Wing at rear has fireplace with moulded bressumer. First floor: wing at rear noted to have fireplace with composition mouldings. Right side.

Ground floor: early C19 staircase has straight flight of stone steps with balustrade of cast-iron panels incorporating anthemion and snake motifs. Room in front part lined with C17 panelling. Dining room (now Lecture Room) has plaster frieze of Greek fret and paterae beneath enriched cornice. Library has fireplace of Ionic columns with frieze of urns and garlanded medallions, flanked by round-arched niches.

First floor: landing spanned by arches springing from piers encasing timber-frame posts. Room at rear lined with early C17 panelling with frieze of cabled fluting; bolection moulded fireplace beneath overmantel with fluted engaged columns.

HISTORICAL NOTE: the 1590 rainwater head is the earliest surviving in York. The building has had medical associations since at least the early C19 when it belonged to the Anderson family: at the end of the century it was the residence of the noted antiquarian Dr Tempest Anderson, MD. It came into the possession of the York Medical Society in 1944.

(City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 229). Listing NGR: SE6027352021

Derived from English Heritage LB download dated: 22/08/2005

(480) House, No.23 occupies a large site set back from the street behind Nos. 21, 25. The timber-framed central block consists of two contiguous ranges, each of two storeys and attics. Tghough both ranges are of late 16th-century date, they are structurally independent of each other and evidence from the infilling of adjacent walls shows that the S.W. Range was built first. The N.E. Range is divided into three bays; the S.W. Range, though the same length, into only two. In the former range is a rainwater head dated 1590 which may record the year of erection. Two narrower framed wings, each two bays long, project towards the N.W and flank the entrance court leading from the street; they are of about the same date as the central block but the S.W. Wing is clearly on the site of an earlier building of which the N.W. Gable-end is in situ.

To the N.E. Of the central block is a brick-built wing of mid 17th-century date which also projects further to the S.E. And has a strange three-storeyed tower-like termination.Until the 19th-centurythis wing formed part of the adjacent house to the N.E., No. 2 Coffe Yard (485), and probably occupies the site of an original timber-framed cross-wing of that building from which and early 16th-century fireplace with a moulded bressumer survives on the ground floor. In the 18th century most of the S.E. Side of the central block was refaced in brick, and there were internal alterations, including a new staircase. In the first half of the 19th century the W. Wing was widened to accommodate a new staircase, probably in c. 1830-40 for Dr. William Charles Anderson, and in the late 19th century, a three-storeyed wing was built to the S.W. Of the central block, replacing an earlier building of unknown date.; at the S.E. End of this wing is a small early 19th-century block, single storeyed and containg only one room. The whole complex formed at least two tenements in the late 18th century and has had medical connections since the early 19th century; in the latter part of that century it was occupied by Dr. Tempest Anderson and is now used as the headquarters of the York Medical Society; there are also several residential apartments. The following description was made before alterations in 1976.

The N.W. Wall of the Central Block is rendered and has late 19th-century feraming on the gable; there is s pair of mid 18th-century six-panelled doors with rectangular fanlights over, and in front of them a late 19th-century stone porch; on the firstfloor are hung-sash windows and a battlemented rainwater head dated 1590. On the N.E. Wall is some exposed framing with straight bracing. The S.E. Elevation, facing the garden, has two gables; in the right-hand half the first floor and the jettied gable are of rendered framing but the ground floor is of early 18th-century brick, probably representing the underbuilding of a jetty; the left-hand half is of mid 18th-century brick; the windows have 19th-century sashes and there is a door of the same date with half-round fanlight. The framing of the North Wing is rendered but mostly replaced by brick on the ground floor. The S.W. Wall of the West Wing is framed and rendered and has a 17th-century timber mullioned and transomed window, eight lights wide; the mulluions have ovolo mouldings and the window is not integrated with the framing, so is obviously a later addition. The 19th century N.E. Wall is of brick and has a round-arched staircase window. On the gable-end wall is the surviving truss of a demolished late mediaeval building. The East Wing is mostkly in strecher bond; the S.E. Wall of the three storeyed termination has plat-bands marking the second and attic floors, and the gable has tumbled brickwork and a dovecot on the apex. At the S.E. end of the late 19th century South Wing is a single-storeyed early 19th-century extension; the sash windows in the N.E. Wall are partly altered. The roofs of the whole complex are mostly pantiled but partly covered with plain tiles and slates.

Inside, the timber faming of the central block is bearly all cased, and the original planning is lost. The North Wing has stop-chamfered ceiling beams in the ground floor which is a single room only. The framing of the West Wing is also cased; between it and the central block is a large chimney-breast. The double entrance doors on the N.W. side lead into two entrance halls reflecting the 18th-century division of the house. In the N.E. Hall is a staircase of c. 1750; it has open strings up to the first floor but close strings in the continuation upward to the attic. The S.W. Hall is larger and a passage leading from it through to the garden entrance has cased posts and braces on the side wall. The staircase from this hall to the first floor, sited in the W. Wing, is of the second quarter of the 19th century, and consists of a straight flight of stone steps with an intermediate landing lit by a round-arched window; on the first flooor, around the well, is an iron balustrade with emblems of Aesculapius and the landing is spanbned by arches springing from piers which encase posts of the original N.E. Wall of the wing. On the first floor of the central block a room with early 17th-century panelling has been divided to provide a passage leading to the S. Wing; the panelling, now partly rearranged, has a frieze of cabled fluting, and there is an overmantel with fluted engaged columns above an early 18th-century bolection-moulded fireplace. There is more panelling of the same period on the ground floor of the W. Wing. And on the first floor is a room with early 18th-century panelling, consisting of simple mouldings applied to vertical boarding.

There are many 18th-century doors and moulded architraves and several early 19th-century chimney-pieces with composition ornament, including one in the E. Wing with motifs used by Thomas Wolstenholme of Gillygate, and one in the S. wing extension with flanking Ionic columns. In the attics of the central block is a roof truss with kerb-principals and butt-purlins, but the roof has been much rebuilt ans was partly raised in the late 19th century. In the garden are various loose fragments of worked stone, some of mediaeval date.

SYO65: 1981. An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of York. Volume V, the Central Area. P 229. London: RCHME

A passageway with an arcade of pretty cast-iron columns leads to No. 23, an extensive building of many periods. At its core are two lateC16 timber-framed ranges. There is a rainwater head dated 1590 tothe right above the entrance. Two further narrow timber-framed ranges project to form an open passage to the entrance. A brick wing was added to the N.E. In the mid C17 and in the 1870s a three-storey block was added to the S.W. The latter contains a fine Victorian dining room. A room in the central block has C17 panelling and an overmantel with fluted half columns.

Pevsner N and Neave D 1972. The Buildings of England:Yorkshire: York and the East Riding, p235. London: Penguin

NMR Information

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

General association 535276 Barley Hall

BF061176 YORK MEDICAL SOCIETY, 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 (Monograph). SYO65.

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