York Historic Environment Record

House, now offices. Late C18 with C20 alteration and shopfront. For Alderman Thomas Hartley.

MATERIALS: front of red brick in Flemish bond on painted stone plinth; window arches of orange gauged brick, painted stone sills and sill band; modillion eaves cornice and shopfront of timber. Rear of pink-grey mottled brick in Flemish bond. Pyramidal slate roof with truncated brick stack at apex.

EXTERIOR: 3-storey 4-window front. Pedimented doorcase of pilasters and entablature to left of shopfront; door of 6 raised and fielded panels beneath radial fanlight in round-arched architrave. Shopfront framed in plain pilasters with imposts beneath broad frieze and moulded cornice: central glazed door and radial fanlight in round-arched architrave recessed between shallow, square-paned bow windows, each beneath square-paned overlights behind decorative grilles of crossed bars. Upper floor windows are 12-pane sashes, those on first floor taller, with sill band to first floor windows, and sills to those on second floor. Rear: round-headed staircase window to right of centre.

INTERIOR: partly boarded-in staircase with cantilevered stone steps with curved treadends, concave sided stick balusters and slender ramped-up handrail.

(City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 206).
Listing NGR: SE6029651873

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

Melrose House, No. 3 (Plate 147; Fig. 129), of three storeys, was built in the late 18th century by Alderman Thomas Hartley, a brewer, on the site of The King's Head Inn, which he bought in 1768 (YCA, E94, f. 90v; E95, f. 176). The front, of four bays in good quality Flemish-bonded brickwork, has a stone platband at the first floor and narrower bands joining the window-sills of the two lower storeys; at the eaves is a modillioned timber cornice. The entrance doorway, with a semicircular fanlight, has a pilastered and pedimented timber door-case. The windows are set under gauged flat arches. The back, faced with poorer quality brickwork, without bands or cornice, has a tall round-headed window lighting the stairs. Inside, the ground floor has been altered to a shop. The entrance was originally in the second bay, and the entrance passage had a large room to one side and a small room to the other. The staircase, between the back rooms, has cantilevered stone steps and straight cast-iron balusters.

City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 206

NMR Information

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

BF061091 MELROSE HOUSE, YORK File of material relating to a site or building. This material has not yet been fully catalogued.

People and Organisations

Person of historic interest/notable pers THOMAS HARTLEY 1767 1799

RCHME, 1981, City of York Volume V: The Central Area (Monograph). SYO65.

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