York Historic Environment Record

N°10 Pavement, a grade II listed building (listed in 1980) dating from around c1870, was known up until 1975 as “Rowntrees Grocery Supermarket”. The building is predominantly 4 story’s high with a basement and single storey extension at the rear. It is a purpose-built late nineteenth century grocery shop, planned to provide accommodation for family and staff including 6 apprentices. It has a 3 window frontage, built from orange brick in Flemish bond with an arcaded cast-iron shop front of segmental arches on fluted composite columns with rinceaux in spandrels, beneath a plain fascia and minimal dentil course on moulded brackets with a replacement entrance door and windows (c1980). First and second floor windows are segment-headed 1 pane timber sashes beneath segmental arches of gauged brick and vestigial hood mouldings, those on second floor have painted moulded sills on block brackets, extended to form a moulded sill band. At third floor level the windows are square headed 1 pane sashes above a moulded second floor cornice with flat arches breaking into a frieze below a large moulded eaves cornice on grouped console brackets and clay pantile roof covering. The property has been leased by the Pizza Hut chain since 1987, the ground floor has undergone several internal alterations which includes a two storey flat roofed rear extension, the basement is used for cold food storage, kitchen and staff facilities are located at ground floor towards the rear of the building and provision for 70 covers at the front, customer toilets and cleaner’s storage facilities are located at first floor. Elsewhere the arrangement of accommodation on the three upper floors remain largely unaltered, the layout demonstrates the kind of domestic arrangements made at the time for a prosperous retail establishment employing a number of live-in staff. These upper rooms have laid vacant for a considerable length of time. The majority of rooms feature high ceilings, open fireplaces, 6 paneled doors, timber vertical sash windows and feature cornice and architraves to the rooms fronting Pavement. One of the buildings many charms is a sweeping stone staircase with ornate metal balustrades and timber handrail leading from the first floor landing up to the third floor level (see photograph). Many of the stairs brass carpet rod fixings are still insitu. This feature staircase once provided private access to the residential accommodation above the shop floor, a principle that these proposals seek to follow. Other period features include a fine cast-iron range in one of the central rooms at first floor (see photograph) and the fine original staircase leading from ground floor to first floor level. The upper residential floors have laid vacant for a considerable length of time with many period features showing sign of neglect. Plastered walls, ceilings, cornices, fireplaces, chimney stacks, windows and doors are all in need of repair / remedial work. A recent timber survey of the property identified a number of areas containing woodboring insect, defective roof fabric and wet rot to a number of window frames.