Secular Buildings: Micklegate

MICKLEGATE

(Plates 153, 162; Figs. opp. pp. 69, 94), the great main street of York S.W. of the river, existed on its present alignment before the Conquest, and its name is evidenced from the mid 12th century. Micklegate was of unique importance since it formed the only way between the Bar and Ouse Bridge and was thus an integral part of the old main route between London and Scotland. Its mercantile importance, close to the dockside formed by North Street and Skeldergate, was great, and from the Middle Ages until modern times it has housed a substantial proportion of the greater citizens of York. In it too were placed the town mansions of noble and gentle county families, mostly those from the Ainsty and the West Riding.

In 1282 husgable was paid on at least one hundred and eighteen tofts along the street (YCA, c.60; part of the entry is missing), implying that the whole of the frontages had been built up by then. From the 13th century until the opening of the 19th the mixed character of this great thoroughfare continued. Mansions of the nobility stood next to the houses of merchants and citizens and to the shops of artisans. In the Georgian century, 1720–1820, most of the properties were either rebuilt or refronted in the prevailing style, and this major capital outlay applied not only to the great mansions but also to the quite small buildings which comprised a good part of the frontages. In spite of the stagnation of York trade, much complained of throughout the 18th century, Micklegate was able to retain its prosperity. In it, in front of St. Martin's Church, stood the Butter Market, the staple for the north of England. In the same neighbourhood vintners and bacon-factors congregated, while higher up the hill lived the members of distinguished families who visited the city for its annual 'season'.

Soon after 1800 the proportions of professional premises and of shops increased, as the residential aspect of the street declined. At this period a number of occupiers can be traced as moving out from Micklegate to suburban houses in Blossom Street and The Mount, without the Bar. The mixture of professional, commercial and official buildings, along with a number of hotels and inns, has ever since remained characteristic; characteristic too is the flanking position of its three churches, Holy Trinity, St. Martin, and St. John the Evangelist, which have occupied the same sites since the Conquest and perhaps earlier.

(54) House, Nos. 2, 4, 6, occupies the plot of land given before 1189 by Erneis de Mykelgate to St. Peter's Hospital (EYC, 1, 176–7). The present building was originally a large timber-framed, L-shaped structure, jettied towards Micklegate and with a N.–S. range at the back, against the E. end (late 16th-century). In the early 18th century the S. part of the E. wall was cased in brick, and in Nos. 4, 6 an impressive staircase was inserted and some good doorcases and bolection-moulded panelling were fitted. The main front to Micklegate was rebuilt c. 1840, the jetties removed and the house heightened; in the later 19th century the W. side of the back range was cased in brick. In 1759 the property was acquired by Alderman John Wakefield, Lord Mayor in 1766, and was later known as Wakefield Court (YCA, E.94, f. 25v.). In 1831 the property was bought by Joseph Shilleto, a butcher, and No. 2 became his shop, while the entry between Nos. 2 and 4 took the name of 'Shilleto's Yard', though officially described as St. John's Court.

The main front, of c. 1840, is of large red bricks, containing modern shop fronts on the ground floor. The window sills are of stone. The first floor is of six bays with peculiar spacing: to W. of the first sash window is a window recess and then four more windows, unevenly spaced, each of the foregoing having a very deep and markedly splayed flat arch; the sills are continuous above a band. The second floor has a similar disposition, but the windows are not so high and have separate sills. The third floor has or had a range of six small windows, with heads formed by the moulded cornice above, which has heavy rectangular modillions. In the slate roof above it are three pedimental-headed dormers. The wall facing E. on St. John's churchyard is of 18th-century brick but is still jettied above the ground floor. It has a 19th-century heightening. At the N. end of the range behind No. 2 is a patched timber-framed gable. The main block, in general of 18th to 19th-century brick, consists of two sections, each with a gable and of four storeys. In the E. section is a through passage and above the second floor is one exposed timber, probably a wall plate. The W. section bears the scar of a three-storey wing, now demolished. There is an 18th-century doorway on the ground floor, and blocked doorways occur on the first and second floors.

Inside No. 2 the staircase of c. 1840 has a simple moulded rail, turned newels and square balusters. The S. room on the first floor has early 17th-century oak panelling with a carved fluted frieze on three walls, though that on the E. wall is partly modern; the S. wall is plastered and has windows of the early 19th century, when this wall was rebuilt. The central fireplace in the N. wall has an early 18th-century bolection-moulded surround and an arcaded overmantel of c. 1600 with carved decoration and simple fluted demi-columns and pilasters; the fluted frieze may well be a modern reproduction. The room behind in the projecting wing has an exposed transverse beam, supported by a post; a spine beam joins the N. wall plate and the transverse beam. On the second floor, a large room to the N. has cased posts with enlarged heads at each end of the E. wall. In the S.W. room at the N. end of the W. wall is a post with enlarged head and, at the top of the wall, a wall plate. There are some simple original roof trusses with collar and principals, all cased; the jettied front to Micklegate has been cut back and hipped, and elsewhere the roof has been altered and heightened in the mid 19th century.

The house Nos. 4 and 6, of rectangular plan, has a very thick internal wall. In general there are two rooms to the front on each floor, and behind the chord wall are the staircase and landing. The ground floor has been gutted but the N.W. corner-post of the timber-framed building remains in battered condition. A doorway to the rear has a bolection-moulded and eared surround and heavily moulded cornice. The door has eight fielded panels and opens outwards; to E. of it is a round-headed window with heavy ovolo-moulded glazing bars. The cellar has stone walls. The early 18th-century bolection-moulded panelling from the front first-floor rooms has been taken to Skelton Manor, near York.

The staircase (Plate 161, Fig. 17e) rises from ground floor to attics and has closed strings, with mouldings top and bottom, turned balusters with square knops and a swept handrail and matching dado. Up to the second-floor landing, the baluster stems are twisted; above, they are plain; all have similar turned elements below the knop. On the first-floor landing is a large surround to a doorway, now blocked, which led to a vanished rear wing, and paired round-headed doorways with key-blocks under a cornice leading to the front rooms.

On the second floor, in the E. room, some timber framing remains visible. Under a wall plate, which disappears into the later front wall, is a series of studs, and at the N. end a curved strut from a corner-post down to the lower rail; in two places on the wall plate is a carpenter's mark. In the middle of the wall is another strut, from a stud, dropping below floor level; it bears the numbers v and Iv, corresponding to studs abutting it. There are two marks on the strut. The numbering suggests that the jetty may have been about 4 ft. beyond the present front. On removal of panelling in the first-floor room below, various studs were visible, tenoned into a heavy rail. The N. strut and a stud which ran into it were both numbered III. The next stud S. was numbered IIII. S. of this were two pegs, probably for a brace and, after a long gap, studs marked respectively II, VII, IIIV. The last stud was cut by a strut, numbered IIIV, which had a stud coming down to its end. Only the struts and stud ii were pegged. Demolished 1964, some parts of the fittings were removed to the Castle Museum, York.

(55) Houses, Nos. 3, 5 and the Queen's Hotel (7, 9), were built by Mr. Henry Thompson (1677–1760) of Kirby Hall and Alderman Richard Thompson (d. 1753), the latter being Lord Mayor in 1708 and 1721; the family were wine merchants (Davies, 187). The building was completed by 1727, when it is shown on Cossins's plan (Fig. 49), and is described as 'new built' in 1736 (Drake, 280). It is probably on the site of the 'stone house' of Roger de Cnarresburg which abutted on the corner property given to Fountains Abbey early in the 13th century (W. T. Lancaster (ed.), Abstracts of the Charters . . . in the Chartulary of . . . Fountains (Leeds, 1915), 1, 277), for mediaeval masonry is still incorporated in a wing behind Nos. 3, 5. Evidence exists of another earlier structure (possibly late 16th-century) incorporated at the back of the Queen's Hotel, and a wing at the rear of Nos. 3, 5 is late 17th-century. Nos. 3, 5 remained in the Thompson family until 1788, when this part was sold to William Wallis, grocer, already in occupation (YCA, E.95, f. 65). After being a grocer's residence, it became a grocer's shop by 1834 (Directories). In 1830–45 Nos. 7, 9 were occupied by Miss Alicia Rawdon (YCA, E.98, the original plan of either house on the ground floor, the first-floor suite of rooms of the Queen's Hotel is an outstanding example of early 18th-century craftsmanship of high quality.

The North Front to the street (Plate 163) retains on the ground floor only the two original doorways, not in their proper positions; above, it is in good quality original brickwork. The bold brick string below the cornice is moulded and has a plain band above it. The W. half of the S. elevation is partly f. 114; Rate Books; Directories). In the E. house (Nos. 3, 5), two shops were inserted in the ground floor, the first and second floors were turned into flats, and the main staircase was removed (Fig. 50). The W. house (Nos. 7, 9) was converted into the Queen's Hotel in c. 1845; considerable alterations were made on the ground floor and the staircase was removed. Later a wing was added to the rear. Despite alterations leaving nothing of covered by a modern block. The three-storey wing behind Nos. 3, 5, of the late 17th century with some 19th-century alterations and rebuilding, incorporates a mediaeval stone wall (possibly Norman) in the W. wall; the E. wall is in good quality brick and, architecturally, of four bays with a heavy oak modillioned cornice. Between the windows are sunk panels, and all openings have flat arches of single gauged rubbed bricks; the four ground-floor openings have been more or less altered and in part blocked, but straight joints below the northernmost suggest that it was originally an entrance. On the first floor are four flush-framed sash windows and on the second floor three sash windows and a casement to S. of uncertain date.

Inside, the original plan of the East House can be traced on the first floor: to the E. was the saloon with a great staircase behind it which has been removed; to the W. were two smaller rooms with the earlier wing behind. The front room to the W. has since been shortened to make space for a modern staircase. The saloon has in the W. wall a bolection-moulded door-case and, in the S. wall, a mid 19th-century white marble fireplace. The plaster ceiling has a heavily moulded and enriched cornice and a central cast-iron decorative roundel for a gas fitting. In the truncated N.W. room is a pine fireplace of c. 1780 with pewter and cast-lead enrichments (Plate 61), moulded, dark-grey veined marble slips and a contemporary cast-iron hob grate by Carron (Plate 74). The late 18th-century plaster cornice is enriched with motifs similar in style to those on the fireplace. The plaster ceiling which survives over the site of the former staircase is domical above an elliptical moulded plaster cornice contained within a rectangle (Plate 165). The enrichments of the cornice include, at the cardinal points, the Thompson crest of a mailed arm holding a dagger. In the S. wing, oak beams of square section are exposed in the ground-floor S. room.

In the Queen's Hotel, an early 18th-century corner cupboard (Plate 69) survives on the ground floor, now reset in the modern S. wing. The first floor of the hotel comprises a fine suite of three rooms, with most of the original fittings intact. The N.W. room, the Saloon (Plate 165), probably the best example of the period 1700–20 to be found in York, has an architectural decorative treatment comprising the Corinthian order with a boldly enriched modillion cornice and framing bolection-moulded panels (Fig. 16a). In the N. wall are three tall sash windows with late 18th-century glazing and bolection-moulded architraves with carved acanthus leaf enrichment, terminating at sill level and resting on fluted pilasters. The E. wall is divided into three bays by pilasters and has a doorway with a bolection-moulded architrave. The S. wall, in four bays, has the principal doorway flanked by pilasters; the door is similar to that in the E. wall; the W. panel was originally hinged to open into a butler's service closet. In the W. wall is a central chimney-breast with the fireplace flanked by pilasters (Plate 164). The ceiling of the room is coved above the cornice. The N.E. Room is almost square and in part lined with bolection-moulded panelling. There is a heavy moulded dado rail, panelled dado and moulded skirting, and the windows have bolection-moulded architraves with pedestal bases. In the W. wall is a doorway (Plate 166) with an over-door containing an oil painting of c. 1620 depicting a pastoral scene. In the S.W. angle is a fireplace (Plate 166) surmounted by a rectangular panel intended to house a painting. The S.E. Room has been sub-divided but the original cornice, panelling and other fittings remain. The fireplace in the N. wall has over the blocked opening a horizontal foliated panel with raised moulded surround, a moulded cornice breaking out over the fireplace, and a rectangular panel above.

The Staircase has been rebuilt, but the two doorways on the first-floor landing are original (Plate 166); they are remarkable for their width of moulding and the acanthus carvings. On the second floor, the N.W. room contains reused 17th-century panelling with a frieze of carved formalised foliage. Among other early 18th-century fittings the fireplace in the W. wall is flanked by plain pilasters with superimposed small pilasters with sunk panels; the breast above the fireplace opening is simply panelled. The N.E. room is panelled throughout (Plate 69); the panelling on the E. wall is probably modern. A room to the S.E., eight steps lower than the front rooms, has a plain plaster cornice and contains a simple late 18th-century Carron fire-grate.

(56) House, Nos. 8, 10, 12, was possibly the new house built by Alderman William Brearey, who died 1637 (NRCRO, ZBM 183, 627, 629). About 1700 it was extended to the N. on the evidence of fittings of that period within the extension. In the early 19th century the house was occupied by the Rev. Thomas Lund, son of John Lund the surveyor, and rector of Barton-leStreet 1783–1832, and later by Henry Cave (1779–1836), the artist, who died here after moving across from No. 13 (57). At this time the owner was Mrs. Custobadie. The property had been divided by 1830 and a second staircase built in the W. part.

The main front, originally set back, was rebuilt on the street frontage c. 1860 (cf. OS 1852; views by Whittock 1858–63). The ground floor has a through passage, with a contemporary shop to the E.; the shop window to the W. is modern. Above, the wall is of large red precision-cut bricks; the roof is of slate. The N. elevation, of stuccoed brick, is two-storeyed with basements; a small closet wing projects at either side of the elevation. At ground-floor level is a stucco-dressed band of three courses; there are two tall sash windows with flush frames and late 18th-century glazing. At first floor is a band with oversailing course, and two similar sash windows at second floor. The lead rainwater head is bowl-shaped with flutings, and the lead fall pipe has holdfasts bearing opposed fleurs-de-lis. There is a simple timber cornice, probably of 18th-century date. Each wing has an entrance to a porch at ground floor, and one late 18th-century sash at first floor, replacing an earlier one. The basement has two 19th-century three-light sashes to the main elevation, and to each wing, a door and sliding sash opening to the area.

Inside No. 8, a ground-floor room to the N.E. with a very high ceiling contains an angle fireplace with plain surround and stone mantelshelf fitted with an early 19th-century range by Bowsfield of York. A stair hall to S. of this room has a tall round-headed opening to the shop in the S. wall. The Staircase of c. 1700 (Plate 86) has a moulded rail, closed string, square newels with attached half-balusters on the faces, and turned bulbous balusters. On the first floor, a room to the N. has a moulded cornice of c. 1700 and panelling from floor to ceiling, in seven heights, on the E. and part of the S. walls; on the W. wall is a dado of similar panelling. A fireplace in the S.E. angle has a bolection-moulded surround with square stone slips and a round-headed grate of c. 1830–40. In the N. wall, a doorway with moulded architrave leads to a small room at the N.E. corner which has a moulded cornice like that of the main room and, in the N. wall, an early 18th-century window with heavy ovolo-moulded glazing bars. The roof, which runs E. to W., is of common rafter construction with collars and single purlins to each side.

Inside No. 12, the ground-floor room to the N.W. has an original doorway in the S. wall opening to the staircase passage, a similar doorway in the N. wall to the porch entrance, a large sash window with bolection-moulded architrave in the centre of the N. wall, and a simple plaster cornice. The room at the front has been converted to a shop. Between these rooms are a stair well and a passage. The Staircase, of c. 1830, has a swept handrail and simple turned softwood balusters. The flight to the basement has stone steps, with cast-iron square-section balusters. On the second floor, the rear room contains reset runthrough panelling, in part ill-assorted, and a timber cornice. In the centre of the N. wall is a sash window with a refitted raised architrave of c. 1700. The central fireplace in the W. wall is original, but contains an early Victorian grate and surround; over the fireplace is a bolection-moulded panel. Demolished 1964.

(57) Houses, Nos. 11, 13, were built as a single structure c. 1740. The building was in two moieties, of which that to E. (No. 11) was bought in 1830, from the heirs of John Green, plane-maker, by Robert Gray, builder, for £745; it had recently been occupied by Thomas Rayson senior, builder, who had moved to No. 16 South Parade (see p. 129). The adjacent No. 13, which had earlier been occupied by John Batty, drawing master, was for many years the home of Henry Cave the artist, who soon after 1830 moved across to No. 12 (see (56). YCA, E.98, f. 114; Directories).

The brick front (Plate 53) has 19th-century shopfronts inserted at ground floor and two angular bay windows, probably of c. 1830–40 added above. On the second floor two windows retain original sashes. The two houses were identical in plan, with open staircases placed transversely between front and back rooms.

(58) Houses, Nos. 16, 18, have been formed from an important timber-framed structure erected in the late 16th or early 17th century with three full storeys and semi-attics above, fully jettied to N. and S. There were few contemporary buildings in York of such large size. An abstract of title (York Co-operative Society, held by the Co-operative Bank, Leeds) shows that in 1565 the property comprised 'messuages and a garden' occupied by Margaret Catton, widow, when the freehold was sold by William Harrynton to William Winterburne, armourer. Winterburne died in 1586/7 and by 1602 his widow, who had remarried, sold the house to William Cowper of York, innholder, and his wife Rosamond. Cowper, free of York in 1561, was already the occupier, and when the freehold passed to Thomas Herbert, in 1629, another innholder Lancelot Geldart (free, 1621) was in occupation. Presumably the house had been built as a major inn under a building lease, perhaps c. 1590. The freehold descended in the Herbert family until 1711, when it passed to Richard Reynolds, who in 1727 sold it to James Robinson, an apothecary. The property was for sale in 1764 (York Courant, 13 March), when part was occupied by Mrs. Robinson and under-tenants, and part vacant. At this time the upper part of the front was cut back and a brick façade built, the property divided into two parts, each fitted with its own staircase, and new chimneybreasts inserted. This work is dated to 1764 by a rainwater head bearing the crest of Walker, a greyhound sejant, collared, referring to the family of the Rev. John Walker, rector of St. Denys 1797–1813, who died in No. 16 on 25 August 1813 at an advanced age (York Courant, 30 August). The freehold in 1801 passed to William Cobb (YCA, E.95, f. 247v.) who had already acquired No. 18, which was occupied for a time early in the 19th century by Peter Atkinson junior, the architect (YCA, E.96, f. 201v.; E.97, f. 185v.). No. 16 was bought in 1814 by William Price, grocer, who occupied it for a time; later occupiers were Amos Coates, surgeon, Sheriff of York 1833–4 (YCA, E.98, f. 169v.) and Henry Keyworth, surgeon (YCL, St. John's Rate Books; Directories). In 1824 the adjacent Pack Horse Inn, to W., took over No. 18 to extend its premises (YCA, E.97, f. 185v.). During the 19th century the front of No. 18 was stuccoed and the upper parts of both houses covered with Roman cement.

On the front to Micklegate (Plate 52) No. 16 is faced with 18th-century brickwork above a later shop-front. No. 18 has been covered with early 19th-century stucco. The back wall (Plate 52) retains the jetties of the second and attic floors, and has hung-sash windows mostly of the 18th century. The remodelling of c. 1764 formed two houses each with a staircase (Plate 86) placed transversely between front and back rooms, the staircase probably occupying the site of original chimneys. One of the first-floor rooms has an original enriched plaster ceiling (Plate 51) curtailed when the front was cut back. Other fittings are of the 18th and early 19th centuries. In the roofs original collar-beam trusses remain with principals rising from short sole-pieces like the stub ends of tie-beams (see p. lxxiv and Fig. 13j). Demolished 1964.

(59) House, Nos. 17, 19, 21, was originally timber-framed, of three storeys with two jetties to the street and none to the back. It is of the late 15th century, and may have been of double width with a second gabled roof to the back. Parts of the timber-framed structure remain in situ, some being exposed on the second floor with the infilling between the timbers placed against pegs. The roof, despite later alterations, gives enough evidence for a reconstruction of the mediaeval framing. The floors are all original and have rough-chamfered joists.

In the 16th century an annexe was added at the back, the panels of the framing being filled with brick on edge with the mortar let into grooves cut in the timbers. Behind No. 21 a wing was added c. 1600, now of four bays but originally longer; it has semi-attics with principal rafters rising from short sole-pieces instead of tie-beams to allow uninterrupted access to the whole floor (cf. Nos. 16, 18, 111 Micklegate, Fig. 131 p. lxxiii). Remodelling of the original house in the same period included the construction of an enriched plaster ceiling on the first floor of No. 17, with panels containing fleurs-de-lis. There are also remains of early 17th-century panelling. In the first half of the 18th century a staircase (Plate 85; Fig. 18k) was inserted in the 16th-century annexe and the houses were given a new front in one vertical plane, some windows retaining the sashes of this date; at the same time the roof pitch was lowered. Early in the 19th century, No. 21 was refaced in stucco and refenestrated, moulded stucco architraves being applied and a bay window added. Shop fronts were inserted and re-arrangements made at ground floor in the late 19th century. In 1792 No. 17 belonged to James Hilton, limner (d. 1814), and Thomas Hilton, painter (d. 1793) (YCA, E.95, f. 119), and passed to Thomas's widow, Mrs. Mary Hilton (d. 1833); the painters' business was carried on as Messrs. Beadle and Perfect. By 1828 the house was occupied by Joseph Perfect & Sons, painters; and by Henry Perfect, painter and paperhanger, from 1837 until 1889, when it became a butcher's shop (YCL, St. John's Rate Books; Directories). No. 21 became a grocer's shop early in the 19th century, and later a restaurant.

The ground floor of No. 17 has been greatly altered by conversion to business premises. A small room to E. is painted throughout (Plate 167), probably the work of the craftsmen painters who occupied the premises c. 1779–1889; the work is probably of the late 19th century, but is of two dates, the panels being outlined with papier-mâché borders overlying painted arabesques and the end panels having painted paper over earlier bolder painting.

The late 15th-century roof, of oak, has been modified and its slope reduced (Plate 50). The crown posts, originally carrying a collar-purlin and collar, have been converted to king posts by removing the collars and utilising the collar-purlin as a ridge. The main cross braces are retained, though one of each pair has been shortened to carry the side-purlins. The raking struts affixed to the purlins and the foot of the brace (supporting the purlins) are reused, being secured by nails, but the mortices for their original housings are still visible in the braces (Fig. 13d). No. 17 demolished 1966.

(60) Crown Hotel and House, Nos. 23 and 25, stand on a plot held in 1282 by Roger Basy of the Master of St. Robert (of Knaresborough), paying 1d. husgable (YCA, c.60, m.5/23; YASRS, lxxxiii (1932), 181–94). The property in the 14th and 15th centuries descended to the Knottyngley and Wenteworth families (YCA, B/Y, ff. 62–62v.). There was an inn on the site by 1733 (Benson, iii, 164) and early in the 19th century this had become The Grapes. Among former owners was Thomas Varley (1693–1771), Sheriff of York 1766–7. The W. end of the original building, No. 25, had been divided from the rest shortly before 1830, when it was mortgaged by Richard Dent, a miller, who sold to Charles Robinson, druggist, owner of the adjacent property, for £512 in 1832 (YCA, E.95, f. 84v.; E.98, ff. 107, 143, 165v.).

The building, of three storeys, is of the early 19th century and incorporates part of a late 17th-century brick structure at the rear. The larger section, to E., appears to be of c. 1825, and includes the earlier structure; the smaller lower part to the W. is slightly later in date. About 1850–60, in an attempt to give a symmetrical appearance, the whole front elevation was redesigned with a stucco rendering, a central decorative feature rising the full height, and remodelled windows. Later, shop fronts were inserted to the ground floor. The interior has been much altered but some of the early 19th-century fittings survive.

(61) Adelphi Hotel, Nos. 26, 28, comprises two separate buildings: one facing Micklegate, No. 28, known as 'The Micklegate', and the main structure along Railway Street. They have little historical or architectural merit and, in recent years, have been considerably altered. Behind No. 28 is a separate building (No. 32) of earlier date, now derelict.

The buildings formed part of a large block of property owned by the Benson family and extending N. to Tanner Row. The main block of the Adelphi Hotel represents a house occupied by George Cook, butcher, later by Mrs. Storre or Torre, in 1793 by Mrs. Henrietta Leedes (YCA, E.95, f. 132), and c. 1800 by Mr. Ralph Robinson (E.97, f. 87). In 1819 it was sold to Thomas Cattley, raff merchant (YCA, E.97, f. 87). No. 28, formerly purchased from George Benson, stapler (Lord Mayor, 1738) was in 1749 in the possession of John Malton, goldsmith, and his wife Ann, who had it from her parents, James and Elizabeth Mason. A moiety of the property was conveyed to trustees and the whole described (E.93, ff. 217, 231) as 'a Fore Part late in the occupation of B. Bradley, surgeon and Richard Wilkinson; and a Back Part with two low rooms or kitchens with Chamber over them and a Turf Chamber on the right hand side of entry, formerly enjoyed by Mr. Christopher Easby'. By 1810 the whole property belonged to the Rev. Robert Benson, grandson of George Benson, who sold it to John Nicholson, yeoman, and Robert and Ambrose Gray, bricklayers (YCA, E.96, f. 131). They immediately rebuilt the front part, as an advertisement of 13 August 1810 (York Courant) describes the house as 'modern built'; and by February 1811 (E.96, f. 154) the Grays conveyed their two-thirds of the property to Nicholson, who in 1815 sold the whole to Henry Henwood, occupier of the 'lately rebuilt' front house (E.96, f. 248v.).

The main hotel block appears to have been reconstructed after 1850, but part of the Micklegate elevation makes use of a mid 18th-century moulded and modillioned cornice. No. 28 retains the upper part of its front of 1810 and incorporates in the walls some timbers, possibly remains of a 17th-century structure engulfed in the rebuilding. The front is of painted brick with two sash windows on each floor and a shallow modillioned cornice.

Behind the hotel lies the 'Back Part', of two storeys with attics; it has walls of late 17th-century brick encasing part of a mid 16th-century timber frame and retains parts of original roof trusses. Early in the 17th century a large chimney-stack was built near the middle of the house with a staircase at the side of it (Plate 83); the decoration of roses and thistles on the strings may indicate a date soon after 1603. There are also moulded beams and joists of the early 17th century. New windows were put in in the 18th century and new fireplaces in the early 19th century.

(62) Cromwell House, Nos. 27, 29, 31, occupies a site of considerable historical interest. In the 13th century the house belonged successively to William and Thomas Fairfax, and to the latter's son Bego who, in 1280, sold the property to Master William de Muro, called 'de Skeldergate'. By 1290 it belonged to the Staveley family and in 1310 a life interest was sold to John de Hothum, afterwards Bishop of Ely. Hothum and the Staveleys conveyed their interests to Sir Geoffrey le Scrope in 1317–22, when the property consisted of a messuage, three cellars, four cottages and gardens extending back to Fetter Lane. The Scrope family held the freehold for several generations (YASRS, lxxxiii (1932), Nos. 526–9, 531, 533–5, 537, 540–4, 546, 552, 554–5). By the 18th century there were two houses on the site, in 1790 occupied by Thomas Prince, merchant, in the W. moiety, and by Thomas Cave, copperplate printer. Between 1800 and 1805 the two tenements had been reunited, and in 1823 the rating assessment was raised (YCA, E.95, f. 84v.; Rate Books; Directories). For a long period the property belonged to Messrs. Theakston, Robinson & Co., druggists.

The present house seems to incorporate remains of an older building, notably a bold moulded dentil cornice and small-paned sash windows to the top stage, but otherwise all visible features belong to a general remodelling of c. 1860.

(63) House, Nos. 35, 37, stands on the site of a mediaeval stone house on which, by 1282, husgable of 2d. was paid, indicating that it occupied a double plot (YCA, c.60, m. 5/23). The freehold of Hugh de Selby, Mayor of York in 1230, the property passed in 1274 to the Clerevaus (Clervaux) family and in 1336 to Sir Geoffrey le Scrope. In 1275 there were two cellars beneath the hall and a part only, on the W. side, let to the owner of the adjacent property, had a frontage of 25 ft. and a depth of 80 ft. Behind the principal house were subsidiary houses and a garden. (YASRS, lxxxiii, Nos. 526–9, 531, 533–7, 540–2, 552, 554–5; YCA, E.20A, ff. 62–62v.). Early in the 16th century the owner was John Beane, Sheriff 1538–9 and Lord Mayor 1545 and 1565, who saved the nearby church of St. Martin from demolition. By the marriage of Beane's daughter Mary in 1554 the property ultimately descended to the family of Wharton and Anthony Wharton (c. 1653–1703) probably built part of the existing building. His daughters Mary (d. 1776) and Margaret (d. 1791 aged 94), known as 'Peg Pennyworth', lived there. The front part of the house was built in the early 18th century. By 1812 the house had been acquired by Peter Atkinson junior, the architect, who divided it and himself lived for some 15 years in the larger portion, No. 37, letting No. 35 to John Bellerby. By 1829 the larger part was occupied by Thomas Hands, cabinet-maker, and Atkinson had leased No. 37 to William Hargrove, proprietor and editor of the York Herald. This W. moiety was from 1843 the home of the famous surgeon, Sir William Stephenson Clark, Lord Mayor 1839 (d. 1851).

The 17th-century part of the premises forms an L-shaped block set some way back from the street, the wings extending E. and S. In the early 19th century Atkinson added a third storey to part of the S. wing, rearranged the accommodation and constructed a new staircase hall in Regency style to the rear of the 18th-century house.

The street front (Plate 52) is of two storeys and five bays in width. The whole ground floor has been converted to shop premises with modern fronts. At first floor are five tall sash windows under arches of rubbed gauged brick. The eaves have been remodelled with a modern cornice.

At the back the S. elevation of the E. wing of the 17th-century building (Plate 54) had three openings to each of the main floors, and in a gable an attic window framed by brick pilasters. In the E. wall of the S. wing a new entrance (Plate 151) was made in the early 19th century and most of the windows were altered but a small oval window is original (Plate 51). There are moulded brick bands and part of an original brick cornice and parapet.

Inside, two first-floor rooms are lined with panelling, of the 17th and 18th centuries respectively, the latter with bold bolection mouldings. The roof to the 18th-century building is carried on trusses with angled principals of a type usually associated with very boldly projecting eaves.

(64) Houses, Nos. 42, 44, 46, 48, standing opposite St. Martin's Church, include a back wing of c. 1710 but the main part of the building (Plate 53) was erected as two messuages in 1747, when a Mithraic altar stone was discovered whilst digging a cellar (Stukeley, iii, 358; Wellbeloved's Eboracum, 79–85; Gentleman's Magazine, May 1751). The site had been acquired from Thomas Mell, merchant, by Thruscross Topham (d. 1757), who married Ann Sanderson on 16 May 1747 (YCA, E.94, ff. 1, 2v.); R. H. Skaife, The Register of Marriages in York Minster (1874), 115), and the rebuilding was probably in connection with the marriage settlement. In 1774 the property was sold to Thomas England, butter factor, who, until his bankruptcy in 1781, lived in one house; the other had been occupied to his death in 1770 by George Eskrick, haberdasher, Lord Mayor in 1739 and 1747 (YCA, E.94, f. 153). In 1791 the whole property belonged to George Beal, butter factor, including a third house in the yard behind (E.95, ff. 111v., 113v.). For about 10 years from 1823 a girls' boarding school, kept by Miss Patience Nicholson, occupied No. 48.

Above modern shop fronts the street elevation is in 18th-century brick with a 19th-century cornice at the eaves. Only one of the windows retains original sashes with heavy glazing bars.

The back wing of c. 1710 retains some original fittings and contains a mid 18th-century staircase (Plate 88). In the main range No. 44, in the middle, has a staircase of the middle of the 19th century. In the W. house, of which the upper part forms No. 48, a room on the first floor is lined with panelling of 1747 (Plate 69; Fig. 16d), and other original fittings remain including a staircase with alternate turned and twisted balusters; the top part of the staircase was altered at the end of the 18th century. Stop-chamfered ceiling beams are of the 17th century reused.

(65) House, Nos. 53, 55, had probably been built shortly before 29 May 1755, when the Corporation required that 'the wall lately built before the house and steps' should be removed as an encroachment (YCA, M. 17). It may have been an early design of John Carr, having details similar to those of Micklegate House and Garforth House (also attributed to Carr), as well as Fairfax House, Castlegate, and Castlegate House, known to have been designed by him. Details given by Davies (Walks, 168–9) of the home of Lady Dawes and her second husband Paul Beilby-Thompson, refer to this house, which can be identified from abuttals in a deed of 1791 (YCA, E.95, f. 108), but it was not the house 'newly-built' in 1736 (Drake, 280). In 1806 the house 'the late residence of the Countess of Conyngham' (widow of the 1st Earl) was advertised to be sold or let, with stabling for eighteen horses (Yorks. Gazette, 20 Jan.). About 1813 (Borthwick Inst., Rate Books of St. Martincum-Gregory) the house was divided into two parts and numerous alterations made. Since the middle of the 19th century, No. 53 has been occupied by someone connected with the adjoining wine and spirit merchants' establishment; No. 55 was occupied by offices of the Inland Revenue and other Government bodies from 1853 onwards; after 1905 it became a girls school.

The front elevation (Plates 170, 78; Fig. 51) was symmetrical until the entrance was doubled (Plate 62) when the house was divided. The back, in buff-red brick, with red brick dressings, has later additions built against it. There are projecting brick bands above the windows of the two lower storeys and a heavy moulded cornice at the eaves. The central stair window has a semicircular arch of rubbed brick, key-block, stone imposts and original sashes.

The original central entrance hall leads to the main staircase at the back of the house and to the former servants' staircase placed transversely to the W. and now reached by a passage taken out of the W. front room. The E. front room has decoration of the highest quality; the woodwork is moulded and enriched, the walls are panelled under an elaborate cornice and the fireplace surround has flanking columns and enriched overmantel (Plate 72). The W. front room was refitted in the 19th century with a simple cornice and cupboards with applied composition roundels of female heads. The secondary staircase has closed strings, square newels and turned balusters. The sumptuous main staircase (Plate 171) rises in a stair hall in which the walls have enriched panels and over the window are floral swags and pendants (Plate 90); the ceiling is decorated with rococo plaster-work (Plate 180). On the first floor the doorcases are surmounted by enriched pediments, and pilasters flank the arched opening to a recessed lobby leading to the front rooms (Plate 168). The front rooms were completely refitted at the beginning of the 19th century (Plate 68). One of the back rooms is lined with panelling (Fig. 16e). The attics are floored with gypsum plaster. Stair hall ceiling renewed 1970.

(66) Garforth House, No. 54 (Figs. 52, 53; see p. xcii), the town house of the Garforth family of Wiganthorpe, was nearing completion in 1757. It is said to have been designed by John Carr (YCL, Knowles, 'York Artists' MS., 1, 104), which is probable since Carr remodelled Wiganthorpe Hall for the family (H. M. Colvin, Dictionary, 125), and it resembles Fairfax House, Castlegate, designed by Carr. The site in 1732 had been divided into two tenements, occupied by Matthew Rayson, carpenter, free of York 1708 (No. 52, to E.), and Nathaniel Earby junior (No. 54); the freehold was then sold by Benjamin Barstow to William Tesh, a wine-cooper (YCA, E.93, f. 65). By 1736 William Garforth had acquired No. 54, and No. 52 came into the hands of his nephew, the Rev. Edmund Garforth (born Dring), by 1755 (E.93, ff. 90, 197; E.94, ff. 1, 2v.). Building of the house may have started about the time of Edmund Garforth's marriage, in 1750, to Elizabeth, daughter of the Hon. Thomas Willoughby of Birdsall; their son William, High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1815, died in 1828 without issue. In 1831 the house was for sale (Yorks. Gazette, 27 August), and it became the residence of Barnard Hague (Davies, 179). It had at times been let to tenants, notably to Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall, the occupier in 1788 (E.95, f. 67v.). The house retains an exceptional number of original fireplace surrounds.

The street front (Plates 172, 78) is of red brick with stone dressings and original railings protect the area in front of the basement. The entrance (Plate 63), flanked by original wrought-iron lamp brackets, is in the W. bay and the corresponding window in the E. bay has been altered from a doorway which would have completed the symmetry of the elevation. Wrought-iron balconies to second-floor windows were added in the early 19th century.

The back (Plate 55) is of light-coloured brick with red brick dressings, and is assymmetrically arranged to allow for a large Venetian window lighting the main staircase. A lead rainwater pipe (Plate 81) bears the date 1757 with the initials of Edmund and Elizabeth Garforth and the Garforth crest, a goat's head couped.

On the ground floor the entrance hall is paved with white stone and black marble, and has an enriched cornice with modillions; opening to N. is an archway flanked by pilasters, with a glazed fanlight. A large richly decorated room occupying the central part of the front of the house was probably the Dining Room; it is lined with panelling in two heights with dado rail and enriched modillion cornice above a frieze decorated with arabesques, shells and a female head. The doorways are pedimented (Plate 66), one to each side of the fireplace (Plate 71) which has a surround of white marble. A small room to E., balancing the entrance hall, was formerly the servants' entrance hall, with a doorway to the street; it has a late 19th-century fireplace. The larger back room has a shallow cornice and an early 19th-century fireplace with a marble surround; the chimney-breast is flanked by segmental-headed recesses. The main Staircase (Plate 88) has cantilevered treads and pine balusters (Fig. 18p), three to a tread, and a mahogany handrail finishing in a volute at the bottom. The Servants' Staircase (Plate 88) has turned balusters, two to a tread, and a pine handrail. The doorways have carved and enriched doorcases and doors of six fielded panels.

The Basement has vaulted store-rooms flanking the entrance passage from the front area. At the back are three vaulted rooms, the largest of which was formerly the kitchen.

On the First Floor the main stair hall has an enriched cornice with dentils and modillions and a decorated panelled ceiling (Plate 169) extending over the landing to the S. The staircase is lit by a Venetian window (Plate 90) set in an arched recess with rococo plasterwork and a cartouche bearing a shield-of-arms of Garforth.

The central passage of the ground floor is repeated giving access to three front rooms with moulded cornices with dentils or modillions, entablatures over the doorways (Plate 67), and original fireplaces, one (to W.) decorated with fine carving (Plate 73). At the back, to N., is a fine Saloon entered by a doorway pedimented on both sides (Plate 67); it has a dado of fielded panels, an enriched dentilled cornice and a rococo ceiling decorated with fruit, flowers and musical instruments (Plate 169); the fireplace has a moulded surround of white marble.

On the Second Floor most of the rooms have moulded cornices and in the S.E. room is a fireplace with moulded eared surround, set against plain pilasters (Plate 71).

(67) House, No. 56, is mainly of the second half of the 18th century, but there are remains of an earlier structure, probably of the 17th century; a shop front was inserted in the late 19th century. It is of three storeys and attics, built in brick with modern pantiled roof. The property was bought from Christopher Rawdon in 1747 (E.93, f. 197) by John Bradley, apothecary (d. 1775), who probably carried out extensive rebuilding before his term as Sheriff in 1755–6. After his death it was the home of his widow Antonia (d. 1777) and her sister Catherine Marshall (d. 1779). Later the house was occupied by tenants, including the Misses Mary and Ann Brickland, who carried on a girls' boarding school here from 1823 for some 10 years.

The front elevation is of two bays with sash windows under arches of gauged brick voussoirs, and with a continuous band at first-floor sill level; the second floor has two sash windows with flat arches lower than those below. At the eaves the fascia board and rainwater gutter, supported on simple timber brackets, are not original. The E. gable adjoins No. 54. The back is partly plastered and has 19th-century windows. At the wall-head is a gable with flush coping two courses wide, and a chimney stack to W. Behind this gable, and at a higher level, is another gable, of 17th-century origin but altered to accommodate the mid 18th-century staircase.

Internally most of the rooms have original plaster cornices and two are lined with panelling. On the first floor is an original fireplace (Plate 71). In the E. end of the attic storey is a blocked window, showing that the brickwork here is earlier than 1757, when Garforth House (66) was completed.

(68) House, Nos. 57, 59 (Fig. 54), has a lead rainwater head to the rear elevation bearing the date 1783, agreeing with the stylistic appearance. The house was occupied at the end of the century by Robert Swann the banker, who in 1801 moved to No. 128 (97); and later by Mrs. Susanna Wray (d. 1830 aged 83), widow of the Rev. Henry Wray of Newton Kyme (Borthwick Inst., Rate Books of St. Martin-cum-Gregory; Directories).

The street front (Plate 173) is of three storeys and built in brick with stone bands and a wooden cornice (Plate 78) at the eaves. The ground floor was reconstructed in 1946–7 (Report of York Civic Trust) but both original doorways remain: that to E. (Plate 62) is the main entrance while the other originally gave access to a passage leading to the rear. At the back is a lead rainwater head with initials and date, W A 1783 (Plate 81).

To the E. the main entrance opens into a through passage, giving access to front and back rooms and the staircase between them. There were formerly stairs leading down to the kitchen in the rear of the basement, with service to both ground-floor rooms from the head of these stairs. To the W. a second passage leads directly to the rear of the house. The front room has an original fireplace (Plate 73). The staircase has two slender turned balusters (Fig. 18q) to each tread, shaped cheek pieces and a swept mahogany handrail.

The front saloon on the first floor is a typical room of the period, with moulded skirting, dado rail with milled enrichment, and a moulded and enriched cornice. The doors and windows have moulded and milled decoration to their architraves; the window reveals have sunk panels with foliated decoration in applied composition; in the W. wall is a fireplace with applied composition decoration (Plate 72). There is also an original fireplace in one of the back rooms.

(69) House, Nos. 58, 60, includes a large house built in the late 18th century on the E. two-thirds of the site; this was refronted c. 1830–40 when an older house to W. was rebuilt, giving a uniform elevation to Micklegate. The dentilled brick cornice at the back suggests that the earlier part was designed by the firm of Carr.

The front elevation to Micklegate, of three storeys, is in large pinkish-white bricks; the roof is of Welsh slate. Two shop fronts are probably of c. 1830–40, each flanked by fluted pilasters, and each with a house doorway to the W. Each of the upper floors has four hung-sash windows and above is a moulded cornice on coupled gutter-brackets. At the back the earlier building (No. 58) is in pale brick with red brick dressings. The two lower floors have wide three-light sash windows with segmental arches.

In No. 58 the staircase has an open string to the first flight, the remainder having a closed string and very slim turned balusters with square knops and bases. In No. 60 the staircase has a closed string and, up to the second half-landing, slender turned balusters with large turned newels, and beyond, plain square balusters.

(70) House, No. 61, must have been built late in the 18th century; the three-bay front (Plate 173) and the plan, with staircase placed transversely between front and back rooms, are typical (cf. adjoining house, Nos. 57, 59, dated 1783). An unusual feature is the placing of the service passage adjacent and parallel to the entrance passage. Later alterations include a mid 19th-century surround to the front door, and a large single-storey extension to S. The property was occupied by George Telford (1749–1834), of the family of York nurserymen, from 1786 until 1809 (York Courant, 12 Dec. 1786; 13 March 1809), and the freehold descended to his grandson Colonel Charles Telford, J.P., who lived in the house from 1876 to his death in 1894, when it was bought by Dr. W. A. Evelyn, physician and antiquary.

The staircase has cantilevered stone treads, shaped on the underside, square balusters with hollow faces, and is lit by a lantern in the roof. In the front room on the ground floor is an original fireplace with applied decoration (Plate 74).

(71) House, No. 67 (Plate 158), was originally a three-storey timber-framed structure of two bays, probably of the 16th or 17th century, with two gables towards the street. Early in the 18th century it was rebuilt in brick with a new roof parallel to the street, but some of the original structural timbers remain inside. The fenestration of the top floor was altered later, and the front of the ground floor has been removed to insert a new shop front, which forms a unified composition with Nos. 69 and 71 adjoining. The interior has been much altered, and there are later additions to the rear of early 19th-century date. This was probably a butcher's shop for a long period: the successive occupiers William Hill (from before 1798), Chamberlain of York 1807, and Peter Armistead, Chamberlain 1823, belonged to that trade (YCA, E.96, f. 105; E.97, f. 143v.; Rate Books; Directories).

On the street front the windows have exposed box frames and heavy glazing bars. A rainwater head is dated 1763 (Plate 81).

(72) House, No. 68, was built in the mid 17th century; an entrance hall archway, the fine staircase, and possibly the cellar doorway are of this period. In the early 19th century the upper storey was added and most of the house remodelled. Edmund Gyles (1611–76), the glasspainter, and his more famous son, Henry Gyles (1645– 1709), lived here (Davies, 171–2); later occupants were William Stead junior, stonemason (d. 1823), Thomas and William Kirby, druggists (Rate Books, Directories), and George Hornby, surgeon (Davies, 175).

The street front, three-storeyed, is in stucco-rendered brick; it has a modern shop front and, to W., a doorway of c. 1800, with Roman Doric pilasters, glazed fanlight, and door of four fielded panels. Above the entrance is a four-light casement with raised moulded architrave, and over the shop front a Victorian bay window. In the upper storey are two casements, with raised moulded architraves and plain sills. There are moulded bands to both first and second floors, and a moulded cornice. The back elevation, originally two-storeyed, of the late 17th century, has an added early 19th-century storey with a pediment-like gable containing a central bull's-eye window. The original windows were replaced at this time.

Inside, on the ground floor, a large room to N.E. has two cased ceiling beams running E. to W., supported by large posts of c. 1650, stop-chamfered on the N. side. The fireplace in the E. wall is modern, but the door-case and door and a segmental-headed recess and cupboard are of c. 1800. A room to the N.W. has in the N. wall a Regency three-light sash window, with panelled half doors below the centre sash; the raised bead moulding to the panels suggests an early 19th-century date. A doorway of c. 1820 in the S. wall has a fluted architrave with formalised floriate paterae, and in the W. wall is an early Victorian fireplace. The central stair hall leading off the entrance hall has two round-headed archways with moulded architraves and key-blocks by the S.W. corner; one gives access to the staircase. To the E., in a large well, the oak Staircase (Plates 82, 176; Fig. 17a) of c. 1650 has members of large scantling; the treads have been renewed in soft wood. Under the staircase half-landing, the cellar doorway has an ovolo-moulded case of c. 1650, containing a door of planks with a frame forming two large panels.

The Cellar is in two main parts. The N. part has a chamfered ceiling beam running E.-W. In the E. wall are two segmental-headed lamp niches, and in the W. wall is a kitchen range with an early 19th-century grate decorated with raised bars with foliate ends. To E. is a wine cellar with barrel-vaulted roof. The other part has large ceiling joists of the 16th or 17th century running E.-W. There is another cellar, of narrow red brick, to the S.

On the first and second floors the rooms contain various fittings of the early 19th century including windows and doorcases and a white marble fireplace with reeding and carved sprays of flowers. The staircase of c. 1820 from the first floor has a moulded mahogany rail, turned newels, plank string and square balusters. (fn. 1)

(73) House, Nos. 69, 71, was originally timber-framed of two bays, probably of the late 16th or early 17th century, and was later the home of Samuel Dawson (1691–1731), Sheriff in 1718–19 (YCA, E.94, f. 50). In the second quarter of the 18th century extensive alterations were made, including the building of a new brick front and the insertion of a fine staircase with a lantern above and other internal fittings. Considerable later alterations include additions at the rear and the conversion of the ground floor to shops. Despite the 18th-century alterations, the original roof survives, with the gables to the street hidden by the later brick front. The W. half of the property (No. 71) was the Minster Inn, mentioned in 1736 as 'of good resort' (Drake, 280), which survived until 1830 (Directories). The house was advertised for sale in 1794 (York Herald, 6 Sept.), when it was occupied by the widow of the Rev. Philemon Marsh (d. 1788), rector of S. Martin-cum-Gregory for 43 years. The crest of Marsh on a rainwater head confirms the stylistic evidence suggesting that the major alterations belong to c. 1745–50, soon after Marsh came to the parish. Since the private dwelling house was in 1794 stated to have 'four rooms on a floor, good garrets, and a garden, stable, etc.', it is uncertain where the accommodation of the Minster Inn was placed.

The brickwork of the street front (Plate 158), though thickly painted over, appears to be in Flemish bond. All the openings on the upper floors to the front are original though the first-floor windows and some of the second-floor windows have sashes of later date with narrow glazing bars. The parapet is finished with a moulded stone coping, now much decayed. At the E. end is a rainwater pipe with ornamental head bearing the crest of Marsh (Plate 81).

Inside, the ground floor has been converted into shops and only in the front room of No. 71 are there remains of a moulded and dentilled plaster cornice. On the first floor are cased axial and transverse beams supported at their intersections by a Doric column, perhaps of the 18th century. On the second floor it is evident that the roof is gabled toward the street and that the roof-slopes cut across two of the upper windows, which are blocked accordingly behind the glazing.

The Staircase of No. 69 has no visible string (Plate 87); the balusters, two to a tread, have square knops, and at the foot the handrail finishes in a scroll supported on a turned newel. There is a panelled dado about the same height as the stair balustrade, consisting of large fielded panels separated by panelled pilaster-strips below a swept dado-rail. The stair well rises through the whole height of the building, the second floor being carried across at one side on a narrow gallery with a balustrade similar to that of the secondary staircase. The well has a bold enriched and moulded plaster dentil cornice, above which the ceiling is coved toward a modern lantern light. The secondary staircase, from first to second floor, has turned balusters of Doric type, square newel posts and closed strings.

(74) House, Nos. 70, 72, includes in the front range remnants of a two-storey, late 15th to early 16th-century timber-framed house; a third storey and attics were added in the 17th century. A middle range is of the 16th century, and a block to the N. is of the early 19th century. The property was refronted to Micklegate c. 1823, when the house was empty for part of the year and the assessment was raised (Rate Books of St. Martincum-Gregory). Over a long period from 1802 the premises were occupied by Christopher Simpson, a saddler, but parts of the property were sublet. In 1825, when Simpson mortgaged the freehold, he was stated to have recently converted the former tenements into one house (YCA, E.95, f. 262; E.97, f. 213v.).

The street front (Plate 60) is of fine dull red brick with markedly thin mortar joints; the two shops on the ground floor are modern. The two first-floor bow windows have moulded framing with moulded paterae, plain friezes and simple cornices. At the W. end is a contemporary moulded and fluted rainwater head. At the back, the original range has been engulfed in later heightening and early 19th-century additions. A three-storey block standing forward from the rest, in very poor condition, is in stucco-dressed brickwork and has sash windows to all three storeys; the four-storey block to the E. is in large common brickwork of the early 19th century. All the roofs are tiled.

No. 70 has no internal features of interest at the ground floor. The S. first-floor room was refitted in the Regency period, only the boxed transverse beam remaining of the earlier building. The Staircase of c. 1800–10 has a moulded rail, plank string, turned newels and square balusters. The commonrafter roof includes a large number of reused timbers.

Inside No. 72, the Staircase has a moulded rail, plank string and square balusters. On the first floor, in the room in the N. range is a fireplace with a plain surround with moulded architrave containing a basket grate, signed Carron, which has on each jamb an oval containing a pair of doves between musical instruments, and, on the cheek pieces, scrolls and rabbits. To S. is the staircase in which the stair landing has a minute cornice of palmettes, of c. 1810. In the attics, a large room to the S. contains a fireplace with a reeded and moulded surround, a pulvinated reeded frieze, a cornice and shaped mantelshelf all of c. 1810–20. The N. building contains a Carron cast-iron hobgrate decorated with the Prince of Wales badge etc. In the centre block, timber construction partly visible in the W. wall comprises a cambered tie-beam with straight studs above and below, with some brick-on-edge infilling. The N. room in the front block has a N. wall of fragmentary timber-framing and brickwork, with a 19th-century sash window. Parts of the original structural timber exposed include, in the W. wall, a tie-beam some 1½ ft. above floor level which has a large oak brace morticed into it toward the N.W. end where there is a post with enlarged head into which the N. wall-plate fits. Above the wall-plate, the N. wall is of timber and brickwork of the early 19th century.

(75) House, Nos. 73, 75, is probably the 'new erected messuage' sold on 23 October 1730 by John Riley, bricklayer, and his wife to John Riley of New Malton (YCA, E.93, f. 57). By 1763 the property belonged to Matthew Smith, yeoman, but had been let in succession to two whitesmiths, John Simpson and Thomas Cave (1715–79), the latter the father of the engraver William Cave (1751–1812) and grandfather of Henry Cave the artist; Simpson was the master to whom Thomas Cave had been apprenticed in 1729 (YCA, E.94, f. 50; T. P. Cooper, The Caves of York (1934)). The house was later occupied by a succession of private tenants, including c. 1820–5 Captain John Beckwith, until 1830, after which it became a grocer's shop (Borthwick Inst., Rate Books of St. Martin-cum-Gregory).

The street front, three-storeyed with attics above and three bays wide, is in good brickwork with finer red brick dressings. At first and second floors are brick bands of oversailing courses and, above, a deep moulded cornice. The ground floor, converted to a shop in the 19th century, has to the W., in the position of the original main entrance, a doorway to No. 75; the door-case is of the 18th century. The windows at first and second floors are set at irregular intervals. The rear elevation is two-storeyed, the attic being in the roof space; there is a small two-storeyed addition against it.

Inside, the ground floor is divided into a shop, occupying the front and back rooms of the former house, and the approach to the flat above, consisting of the original entrance passage and central staircase. At the S. end of the E. side wall of the passage is an archway to the staircase with a timber casing with panelled pilaster-like features on the responds, a moulded semicircular arch with sunk panels on the soffit, and very deep key-block. In the staircase hall are two doorways, one with an early 19th-century architrave with reeded jambs etc., and plain square blocks in the corners, the other with an original moulded architrave and door with six fielded panels; a doorway to the cellar, below the upper flight of the staircase, has a similar moulded architrave and door.

The Staircase has, to the lower stage, a cut string, treads with rectangular cheeks and long overlaps, two turned balusters (Fig. 17i) to each tread, swept moulded handrail, and turned newel. From the first floor it has a closed string with deep mouldings and plain newels varying in size; the upper flights are steeper and the handrail is not swept up to the newels.

The main N.W. room on the first floor is panelled and has three sash windows; the moulded cornice breaks and returns forward over the fireplace and window openings; above the door is applied Adamesque decoration, which is probably the frieze reused from a small late 18th-century fireplace. The floors of the attics are of gypsum plaster.

(76) House, Nos. 74, 76, is of mid 18th-century origin though the only evidence of this is the brickwork and band of the upper storeys of the street front. Early in the 19th century, the building was divided into two separate dwellings, at first of equal size since the rate assessment was £5 on each moiety in 1822. Further alterations probably took place then, for from 1823 onwards the assessment on No. 74, occupied by the owner, Harman Richardson, butter and bacon factor, was £6, while that of No. 76, sublet to a succession of tenants, was £4 10s. By this time a shop had doubtless been formed in the ground floor of No. 74. The building was altered again in the late 19th or early 20th century.

The street front is of three storeys. The first-floor windows of No. 74 retain original arches of single rubbed bricks and red brick dressings; all the other windows were more or less altered c. 1900, and the shop fronts are also of this period. The rear elevation, of four storeys, has original brickwork to the level of twenty courses above second-floor windows. No. 74 appears to have been heightened in brick early in the 19th century and No. 76 added to in the second half of that century. A two-storey wing of Regency date adjoins No. 74. Inside, all fittings, such as reeded cornices and simple door architraves with simple paterae to the angles, are of Regency date.

The Staircase has a mahogany handrail swept up to each terminal newel, square-section mahogany balusters, and shaped ends to the risers.

(77) House, No. 77, was built probably in c. 1790. It is of three storeys with attics. A shop was inserted during the mid 19th century, at which time the N. and W. elevations were faced with stucco and the windows reglazed. Until 1827 the house was occupied by the owner, Mr. Carrack, but it was afterwards let to Robert Carr, a druggist (Rate Books; Directories).

The street front has broad bands and continuous window sills at first and second-floor levels, the stucco facing of the zones equal to the full height of the windows being rusticated. The rustication continues across the blind central windows. At the wallhead is a simple modillion cornice, typical of the late 18th century. On the ground floor, to the E. of the shop front, an entrance doorway has an original door-case, tall and slender, with narrow pilasters and console brackets supporting a cornice with a frieze enriched with triple flutings; it has a rectangular fanlight.

The W. elevation to Trinity Lane has bands carried round from those of the main front; the arrangement of windows, open and blocked, is also repeated.

Inside, the ground floor has been converted to a shop, and the partition between the entrance passage to the E. and the adjoining room has been removed. The round-headed archway to the small stair hall, formerly from the passage, has simple pilaster-responds with moulded caps. The Staircase, which is directly opposite the entrance, has slender turned softwood balusters, two to a tread, simple shaped cheek pieces to the risers, and a thin moulded handrail swept up to each angle. It is top-lit.

The Saloon at the front on the first floor extends the whole width of the house. This and the rooms on the second floor contain a number of simple original fittings.

(78) House, No. 83 (Plate 46), built probably in the second quarter of the 18th century, is mostly original, but the front was altered early in the 19th century to include a bow-window and doorway on the ground floor. A lean-to extension at the back is modern.

Each of the three elevations is of red brick, in no regular bond, but that to Micklegate is now painted. Returning three-course bands mark the first-floor and attic-floor levels. The street front has a corbelled and dentilled cornice. The bowwindow is segmental on plan and the doorway beside it is flanked by fluted half-columns and surmounted by a semicircular fanlight and timber hood supported on fern-leaf brackets. The original window openings have elliptical arches turned in a single ring of brick headers and with blind tympana above the rectangular sash frames. The E. gable end, which has brick kneelers, five courses deep, and a brick parapet, contains a round-headed recessed panel flanked by two small windows, the whole of Venetian-window form.

Inside, each floor has essentially the same plan, of two rooms with chimney and staircase between; the ground floor is further sub-divided by a passage from the front door to the staircase and rear room. The Staircase, rising from ground floor to attic, has the treads housed into a single central square newel post. The rooms contain original and early 19th-century fittings.

(79) Houses, Nos. 85, 87, 89 (Plate 174), form a timber-framed range containing three separate tenements under one roof, parallel with the street. Structural evidence shows that the division into three is part of the original design; each tenement is of two bays. Although not marked on Speed's map of 1610, the building is probably of late mediaeval date. The double-jettied front (Fig. 55), embattled bressumers and crown-post roof (Fig. 13e) are features of the late 15th or early 16th century. A manifest addition at the back, itself of late 16th or early 17th-century date, is further evidence supporting this dating, and it seems probable that the range was built for letting as 'rents' along the street frontage of the precinct of Holy Trinity Priory at a date well before the Dissolution. Its survival comparatively unaltered, may perhaps be due, as often elsewhere, to use for the butcher's trade. So far as documentation survives it shows occupation by butchers, of No. 85 probably in the mid 18th century and certainly by 1838, when William Stodart Stoker was assessed on the house and slaughter-house; of No. 87 from 1708 by George Chapman, butcher, and his successors in business; and of No. 89 by William Pearson, butcher, in 1777–96. (Deeds in the hands of the Ings Property Trust; Rate Books; Directories.) The freeholds were independently owned, but a fee-farm rent payable out of No. 87 to John Tempest esq. in 1807 may have been a survival from post-dissolution grants of former Priory property. In recent restorations rendering has been removed to expose the framing, and sash windows have been replaced by casements. The ground floor contains shops with modern fronts. Pantiles have given place to plain tiles throughout.

Each of the three tenements originally consisted of a single room to each floor, probably sub-divided by curtains or flimsy partitions. No evidence for the ground-floor layout survives. At the E. end of the original rear wall of No. 87 the disposition of pegholes in the first-floor timber-framing, allowing for an opening 2 ft. 2 in. wide, suggests a contemporary timber-framed wing or staircase annexe, refurbished in the 18th century and mostly replaced or enlarged in the 19th century. A late 16th-century or early 17th-century timber-framed wing at the rear of No. 89 stands on the site of such an earlier annexe. A stair inside the first-floor room led up to the second-floor room, open to the roof. All fenestration, probably with oriel windows, was on the street front, except possibly in No. 87. All chimney breasts are of a later date and there is no evidence for the original heating arrangements. Only No. 87 has been fully surveyed, but the timber-framing of No. 89 has been recorded during restoration.

On the street front (Plate 174), in No. 87 the late Victorian shop front replaces a bow window which existed in 1886 (G. Benson and J. England Jefferson, Picturesque York (1886), Pl. 2). To E. of it is the shop doorway, adjacent to a further doorway to a through passage beneath a rectangular fanlight. Inside, a dog-leg staircase opens off the through passage. The first-floor landing is to the S. of the main timber-framed house and may represent the original timber-framed stair annexe, since fragments of framing survive in the S. wall. The room at the back is a later addition. The original room, now sub-divided, is entered through an 18th-century round-headed doorway. A short straight stair against its E. wall leads upwards; studding pegged to the underside of the horizontal beam to the W. indicates that this stair follows the original disposition. The second-floor ceiling at tie beam level hides the roof construction, apart from curved braces from the main posts to the cambered tie beam; the single room of two bays was originally open to the roof. In the course of restoration only the original central post and one stud in each bay were found to survive: the present framing is based on the evidence of mortices and pegholes. Although cut back, sufficient evidence remained of the embattling on the bressumer. A central N.-S. beam, 10 in. by 9 in., carries the N. post and is tenoned into the S. post and has two E.-W. beams, 11 in. by 9 in., off-set from one another, tenoned into it on each side. Each of the four main divisions contains six N.-S. joists, about 8 in. by 6 in.

To No. 89 a timber-framed back range of late 16th or early 17th-century date has been added at right angles. Its roof is of four bays. A curved brace between the eaves-plate and the central post has been removed to make way for a doorway from the second floor of the front block into the attic, where four of the trusses are visible. The first truss 'A' is only 1¾ft. from the S. wall of the main block. The third truss, 'C', of similar type, has a cambered tie beam, 12 in. by 7 in., instead of a horizontal one; the trusses 'B' and 'D' have tie beams like 'A'. The third bay is largely occupied by brick chimneybreasts of various dates from the early 18th century onwards. The bays are about 6¼ ft., with three pairs of coupled rafters, without collars, to each bay. On the first floor of the front range, a gap of 2 ft. 2 in. between stud and post, indicated by the mortices and pegholes, at the E. end of the S. wall may mark a doorway from the annexe stair, as in No. 87.

(80) Bathurst House, No. 86, one of the finest houses in Micklegate, was built in the early years of the 18th century (Figs. 56–7). The site was that which, c. 1230, had belonged to Agnes, first wife of Nicholas de Bugthorp, and was later granted by him to maintain a canon for ever in the Priory of Healaugh Park, under the description 'between the lane next St. Gregory's church and the house of William son of Agnes, and from Myclegate to North-street' (YASRS, xcii for 1935 (1936), 155–6, 161). Drake (280) describes it as 'Charles Bathurst's house newly built at Gregory [Barker] Lane end', and it appears on John Cossins's plan of c. 1727, when it belonged to Charles Bathurst, then High Sheriff of Yorkshire. That the house is earlier than this is proved by the survival of rainwater pipes bearing the Bathurst crest with heads on which are the letters C.F.B., evidently for Charles Bathurst, father of the High Sheriff, and his wife Frances, both of whom died in the first six months of 1724 (Davies, 167). The younger Bathurst never married and died in 1743, after which the house was occupied for a time by the Hon. Abstrupus Danby (Borthwick Inst., Rate Books of St. Martin-cumGregory; cf. Davies, 139). The house was regarded as of considerable importance, since it was individually marked, not only upon Cossins's plan, but also on John Haynes's prospect of York of 1731. By 1752 the property had passed to Henry Masterman senior, who advertised it to let as '4 rooms below and 5 chambers above, with 5 good garrets, a kitchen, washhouse, laundry, large cellars, garden, 2 coach-houses, stable for 9 horses' (York Courant, 9 Oct. 1753).

Originally of two storeys with attics, the latter lit by three dormer windows as shown in the view on Cossins's plan (Fig. 56), the house was heightened to a full third storey c. 1820–5 (probably early in the occupancy of Mrs. Lucy Willey, who appears in the Rate Books from 1818 to 1839; in 1823 the assessment was raised from £16 to £17). At the same period various interior fittings were replaced in Regency style. Later extensions and alterations were made to the service wing at the rear, some of the work being done in 1873 for the North-Eastern Railway, which owned the premises in 1872–9 and converted them into offices for the District Goods Manager, Southern Division (Title Deeds; information from British Transport Historical Records, York).

The property, after the death of Henry Masterman senior in 1769, descended through his son, Henry Masterman junior, to Henrietta Masterman who married Sir Mark Masterman Sykes. After passing through several occupations, including that of William Cadday (d. 1806), Sheriff of York in 1797–8 (Skaife MS.), the house was sold by the Sykes for £1350 in 1813 to Mrs. Elizabeth Richardson (YCA, E.96, f. 214), and soon afterwards resold to Mrs. Lucy Willey, who occupied the house herself until 1838. It was later the home of the Misses Sandys (1838–49), of William Frederick Rawdon (1850–5), and of Caleb Williams, surgeon, who died in 1871. After the period of occupation as railway offices it again became a surgeon's residence from 1879 to 1909; from 1911 to 1921 it was the Central Hotel and thereafter for almost 40 years the York Y.W.C.A. It is now the property of York University (Title Deeds; Rate Books; Directories).

The street front (Fig. 57) is in good quality red Flemishbonded brickwork, the upper storey being of slightly larger bricks. When the upper storey was added, the original rain water heads and cornice were re-employed and matching lengths of fall pipes were inserted. Most of the architectural features are plainly shown in Plate 175. The Roman Doric surround to the entrance is of the second half of the 18th century, but the glazed doors are modern. In the windows, narrow glazing bars replace the originals, which presumably were thicker. Above the entrance, the narrow central bay breaks forward some 3 in., the upper part being slightly widened at the head of the central window. To E. and W. are large lead rainwater heads (Plate 81) decorated with cherubs' heads and initials, 'B' above, 'C' and 'F' below; the fall pipes of square section have brackets enriched with the Bathurst crest.

The E. side elevation to Barker Lane has a flat-topped gable, in part with ashlar coping. The good quality red brickwork of the front is returned about the S.E. angle and the first-floor band is continuous. A side entrance has a semicircular gauged brick arch and painted stone imposts. There is evidence in the brickwork of changes in the fenestration.

The rear elevation, three storeys high, has a small closet wing to the W. and the service wing to the E. A brick band again occurs at first-floor level, and at the wall head is an early 19th-century cornice with simple paired brackets. The most noticeable feature is the large staircase window with a semicircular head turned in gauged bricks. Inside, the entrance hall, with simple plaster ceiling and cornice, has inserted doorways with pedimented doorcases of c. 1840 in the E. and W. walls. To N. is a round-headed archway with wood panelled responds and soffit and a fluted key-block; it opens to the stair hall.

On the ground floor (Fig. 58), most of the fittings in the S.E. room are in the Regency style. The window casing has linear decoration; the N. door-case has a reeded surround with paterae at the angles though the door itself is early 18th-century. The W. doorway and fireplace are Victorian. The Staircase (Plates 82, 84) has an open string, swept oak handrail terminating at the foot above a fluted newel post, and turned balusters (Fig. 17h) mostly three to a tread. The balusters, with pierced twisted shafts alternating with two fluted shafts, are further elaborated with pedestals which, in York, are unusual for the multiplicity of mouldings. The oak dado has fielded panels. The asymmetry of the surround to the large staircase window to fit the rise on the turn of the stair is also unusual (Plate 90). The ceiling over the staircase itself has a heavily moulded and enriched plaster cornice with a cove above rising to a square panel with quatrefoil centrepiece; that over the first-floor landing has an enriched geometrical design with the Bathurst crest in the middle. This same landing has a round-headed archway with flanking panelled pilasters and a key-block in the E. wall and, in the other walls, doorways with simple architraves and doors of six ovolo-moulded fielded panels.

The Saloon windows and the N. doorway have reeded or fluted architraves with paterae at the angles all in Regency style, but the doorway contains a reused early 18th-century door of eight fielded panels. The fireplace is modern. The ceiling is decorated in Adam style, probably in embossed paper, with a round panel in the middle surrounded by delicate swags of husks and florets. The N.E. room contains some early 18th century panelling on the E. wall and in the S.E. angle the fireplace survives from the original fittings.

(81) Micklegate House, Nos. 88, 90 (Plate 177; Figs. 58, 59) the most important Georgian residence S.W. of the Ouse, was built for John Bourchier (1710– 59) of Beningbrough as his town house, and was finished by 1752. It is said to have been designed by John Carr of York (G. Benson in Architectural Review, II (1897), III), and though there is no proof of this, it resembles other houses known to have been designed by him. The house passed to Bourchier's widow who died in 1796, and was then leased to James Walker and, from 1811, to Joshua Crompton (1755–1832), who bought the freehold in 1815 and in whose family the house remained until 1896. When the house was for sale in 1815 it was described as comprising, on the Ground Floor, Entrance Hall, Dining Room, Parlour, large Kitchen, Back Kitchen, Pantry, Housekeeper's Room, Butler's Pantry, Water Closet; First Floor, two elegant adjoining Drawing Rooms, two good Lodging Rooms one with attached Dressing Room, the other with a Light Closet; Second Floor, six good Lodging Rooms, one Dressing Room; Attics, four good Servants' Rooms, and a Light Closet; Vaulted Cellars and a Laundry; good Garden, Coachhouse, Stables for 11 Horses, 'a large Reservoir Well supplies the house with Water' (York Courant, 3 April). After 1896 the house became business premises and much of the panelling was removed and sold; a fireplace from the best bedroom is now in the Treasurer's House. Though now only a skeleton of its former self, it remains the best house of its date in York, at least in regard to the main staircase and the plaster ceiling over it.

The main front (Plates 177, 178) is built in good red brick with stone dressings above a stone-faced basement and has not suffered from any alteration; the doorway at the E. end which departs from the strict symmetry of the elevation is part of the original design. The rainwater pipes have been renewed and the wrought-iron railings have been restored. A pair of gates matching the railings is in the Yorkshire Museum.

The back (Plate 55) is built of buff-pink brick with pale red brick dressings. The storeys are divided by projecting brick bands. Some of the windows still have original sashes, others have replacements with thinner glazing bars. A lead rainwater head (Plate 81) bears the initials of John and Mildred Bourchier with the date 1752 and each holdfast to the downpipe bears the Bourchier crest, a man's head wearing a ducal coronet and a long tasselled cap hanging forward.

Inside, the hall has a panelled plaster ceiling, and a fireplace with a marble surround (Plate 73); to N. an archway leads to the stair hall (Plate 179). To the W., the Dining Room is lined with simple panelling under an enriched cornice, and has a fireplace with a marble surround (Plate 74). Behind the dining room and under the Best Bedroom was the Library, also lined with panelling and having an original fireplace surround. The windows contain two painted glass panels (Plate 181): a spaniel, 'Dick', sitting on a cushion, and a greyhound, 'Rover', both signed 'W. Peckitt Pinxit 1756'. Peckitt's account book (York City Art Galley, Box. D.3) has the entry: '1756 February— For John Boutcher Esq. a setting Dog £1. 1. 0; For Miss Boutcher a lap Dog £1. 11. 6.' The E. front room was the Housekeeper's Room and has a series of fitted drawers and cupboards in a recess. Behind this room the Servants' Staircase has cut strings and turned balusters with square knops similar to the servants' staircase in No. 55 Micklegate. To the N.E. below the Retiring Room, the Kitchen has a large segmental-headed fireplace which contained a steel grate (Plate 92) with ovens, two movable trivets with swivelling circular hobs, and a swing arm for a kettle. Above is an elaborate mechanical spit, worked by a smoke jack in the main flue, transmitting a drive through bevel gears to a horizontal, square shaft. (Range and spit removed.) The main staircase (Plate 182) rises to the first floor only; it has broad cantilevered steps and enriched balusters (Plate 84; Fig. 180) and is lit by a round-headed window flanked by pilasters (Plate 90).

The Cellars are covered by brick vaults except under the kitchen where there is a large room with a fireplace and casement windows.

On the first floor the stair hall has an enriched modillioned cornice and a ceiling in rococo style (Plate 180), resembling one at Fairfax House, Castlegate. To the N. and S. are medallions containing busts in relief, one representing Shakespeare. Over the landing is an extension of the ceiling with an oblong panel.

In the front of the house are two intercommunicating rooms. The larger, formerly called the Reception Room (31 ft. by 19 ft.), has been stripped of most of its fittings. The smaller Drawing Room (25 ft. by 19 ft.) has also been stripped, the carved mantlepiece having been removed to Esholt Hall, but the rococo ceiling remains. It has a centre piece with a spaniel barking at a water bird, perhaps a heron, framed in asymmetrical scrolls and foliage, with four heads in panels at the angles (Plate 77), perhaps representing the seasons. In the room to N.E., once called the Retiring Room (23 ft. by 19½ ft.), is a plain fireplace of white marble. In the former Best Bedroom the walls are plainly panelled. The modern fireplace in the W. wall takes the place of that removed to the Treasurer's House (Plate 71).

The second floor is reached from the servants' staircase, and above are attics where parts of massive oak roof trusses are exposed. The joints are notched and pegged, and bear position-marks in Roman numerals. There are four intermediate trusses visible, spaced about 10 ft. apart.

(82) House, Nos. 91, 93, consists of a two-storey brick range along the street and a lower range of one storey and semi-attic running S.E., forming an L-shaped plan. It is uncertain whether both ranges are of the same date; the heights are different but the brickwork appears similar. Some features, such as the tumbled gable to the back range and the sawtooth corbelled eaves on the front, indicate a late 17th or early 18th-century date. The whole property belonged to Phillip Tate senior, merchant tailor, by 1741, and 5 years later was sold to another of the same trade, John Monckton or Mountain, whose widow Jane lived in the house until 1776. It was then sold to Thomas Kilby, a brewer, who let it to a succession of tenants (YCA, E.94, ff. 198, 200v.; Rate Books of Holy Trinity). The first evidence of a division into two tenements is in 1830, when Mary Collins, dressmaker, seems to have occupied the smaller shop, No. 91; the larger shop, kept by Ellen and later by William Gregg, was a Post Office in 1851, when No. 91 was occupied by Robert Nutbrown, a gardener. The space enclosed by the two early ranges was filled in the 19th century, and there is a long 20th-century extension to the S.E.

The street front is shown in the elevation opposite p. 69. The interior has been considerably altered and the ground floor contains two shops separated by a through passage. No original features survive, apart from axial beams on both floors of the front range.

(83) House, No. 92, a good example of the smaller town house (Fig. 58), was built c. 1798 (when the rating assessment was increased), probably by the firm of John Carr; the staircase balusters are like those of the Black Swan, Coney Street, and No. 18 Blake Street, the latter being by Peter Atkinson senior. A two-storey range at the back, possibly of the first half of the 18th century, was modernised in the 19th century, when a first floor was added to the vestibule joining it to the main building. In 1948 wrought-iron scroll-work was added to the side of the entrance doorway (York Civic Trust, Report 1948–9).

Robert Fairfax of Steeton, a Captain in the Royal Navy, who bought the site, became M.P. for York in 1713, and Lord Mayor in 1715, when he gave a fine brass chandelier to St. Martin's Church, Micklegate. In 1725 he died, aged 60, and was buried at Newton Kyme; his wife, who died in 1735, was buried at St. Mary Bishophill Senior (Davies, 141–4). The house was sold, in 1805, by John Fairfax of Newton Kyme, grandson of Robert, to Mary Coates of York, widow, who had been the occupier since 1800 (YCA, E.96, f. 39; Rate Books). Later owners were Thomas Backhouse, seedsman, from 1817 until his death in 1845, and his brother James Backhouse (1794–1869), nurseryman and seedsman, who lived here until he moved to Holgate House (52) in 1859.

The main front (Plate 53) is in red brick, with stone dressings, and has a slated roof. The windows have deep flat arches and stone sills, and the modillioned and dentilled cornice overlaps the adjacent Micklegate House (Plate 78); to E. is a moulded rainwater head with a fall-pipe secured by holdfasts decorated with opposed fleurs-de-lis. The iron railings are original.

The entrance leads to a through passage off which the staircase is placed transversely between front and back rooms. The front dining room is typical of a York house of the period. It has a moulded skirting and dado rail, applied plaster mouldings to the walls, and a dentilled plaster cornice, with transverse fluting to frieze. The fireplace, though correct in style, is said to be a reproduction. The staircase has a swept moulded pinewood handrail, spiralling over a newel at the bottom; cantilevered treads with plain cheeks and moulded edges; slender, turned balusters, three to a tread, with an urn feature under a square knop; and on the inner side, a moulded dado rail and skirting. Some of the upper rooms have original cornices and fireplace surrounds.

(84) The Falcon Inn, No. 94, was one of the two great hostelries of Micklegate (Drake, 280), and its site included the present No. 96. The inn was ruined by the coming of the railway to York and the site was redeveloped in 1842–3, when the rates first show the present division into two houses (Borthwick Inst., Rate Books of Holy Trinity, Micklegate).

No part of the ancient buildings survives, but the carved sign of the Falcon (Plate 92) is attached to the present front. It is probably of the late 18th or early 19th century.

(85) House, No. 95, of three storeys, on plan forms a long narrow rectangle and is of two separate builds: the front part, timber-framed, is probably of the 16th century; the extension at the back, in brick, is of the late 17th century, as are the chimney and adjacent staircase at the junction of the two parts. In Victorian times, the ground-floor room to Micklegate was converted to a shop and the upper storeys cement rendered. For a half-century from 1800 this was the barber's shop of James Mackerill; since the mid 19th century the house has belonged to the owners of No. 97.

At the front the simple shop front and the windows are of the 19th century, but the original jetty of the first floor survives. The back is built of thin bricks typical of late 17th-century work in York; it has a projecting band at second-floor level.

Inside, the timber studding of the side walls is visible on all floors. A fireplace to the rear has a late 18th-century cast-iron grate, by Carron, of duck's-nest design, enriched with foliage, with vesica-shaped panels containing cherubs playing a drum and a flute. The staircase has shaped flat balusters (Fig. 17d). At the centre of the back part is a roof truss with curved upper crucks.

(86) House, No. 98, was built c. 1770–80. At the time it belonged to Denis Chaloner, a cooper, who sold it in 1785 to George Smithson, innholder of the adjacent Nag's Head (88) (YCA, E.95, f. 28v.). It formed part of the public house until after 1850, but was remodelled about 1828, when the assessment was raised (Rate Books) A modern wing has been added at the back.

The street front, of three storeys under a slated roof, has a modern shop front to ground floor, two upper storeys of painted, Flemish-bonded brickwork with a stone band at first floor, and a modillioned cornice. At first floor is an inserted bay window, of the second half of the 19th century. At the back a small wing projects at the W. side. Inside, the staircase is original and has a swept moulded handrail, closed string, and slender turned balusters with square knops.

(87) Houses, Nos. 99, 101, 103, 105, 107, 109, comprise a two-storey range of seven timber-framed tenements with a frontage to Micklegate of nearly 100 ft., and to the rear of Nos. 107 and 109 three buildings of the 15th, 17th and 19th centuries, known collectively as No. 111 (Figs. 60, 61). The front range, Nos. 99–109, was built in the mid or late 14th century, probably before 1369, the N.E. house, No. 99, standing against the nowvanished 13th-century gateway to Holy Trinity Priory (see p. 12, Fig. 27). These tenements were combined and divided in various combinations at different periods. Nos. 99, 101 and 103 had attics inserted in the 17th century, and No. 103 was refronted in brick in the middle of the 18th century by a member of the Greenup family. In 1774 Nos. 105, 107 and 109 were 'newly and uniformly fronted' with a three-storeyed brick elevation by Thomas Peart (YCA, E.96, f. 47). No. 111 consists of three buildings, here described as (A), (B) and (C) (see plan). (A) was built, probably c. 1806, in the angle between the two parts of No. 113 (93), and incorporates the S.W. corner of No. 109. (B) at the S.E. end of the No. 111 complex, is a 15th-century timber-framed building; from its position far back from the street frontage, it may have formed some minor element in the conventual layout of Holy Trinity Priory. (C) is also timber-framed and is a late 16th or early 17th-century house. Its position, linking (B) to the back of Nos. 107 and 109, fits the pattern noted in No. 89 Micklegate (see p. 82) of buildings being erected within the grounds of the Priory after it had come into lay possession. The planned use of a semi-attic in No. 111(C) is interesting, and the constructional details of the 14th-century range are worthy of note.

Nos. 99, 101 now form a single shop, but were originally two separate tenements. The front retains its original jetty, but is otherwise remodelled. In 1958 the back wall was rebuilt in brick and the gabled E. end cloaked by a brick skin (Plate 49).

The ground floor retains traces of timber-framing, and the W. room (No. 101) has an 18th-century plaster cornice. The central through passage and staircase are of 19th-century date. On the first floor the E. room has had its inserted attic floor removed, and much of the timber-framing is visible (Plate 49). The roof-trusses are of crown-post construction with archaic features (see p. lxxii and Fig. 13a). At the back of No. 101 is a 19th-century brick addition.

No. 103, The Coach and Horses, comprises two of the original tenements and has a 17th-century block added at the rear. The front wall was rebuilt in brick (now rough-cast) in the mid 18th century and retains the first-floor sash windows of that date. The back was also rebuilt in brick in the 18th century; it has been considerably altered.

The ground floor has been extensively modernised internally, but on the first floor some of the timber framing is visible, and the E. room has a late 18th-century hob grate. In the attic the central and E. roof-trusses are visible, the W. one being mostly masked by wattle and daub. In the E. truss the crown post tapers evenly from top to bottom (Plate 50), but in the central truss it has the usual enlarged head (Plate 49). Both trusses are of the same type as in Nos. 99 and 101.

Nos. 105, 107, 109 present a unified front elevation of brick, of three storeys under a roof covered with modern sheeting. They have a band at second floor and a modillioned and dentilled cornice; most of the openings are Victorian. Between No. 107 and 109 is a rainwater head inscribed 'TP 1774'. At the back only a mid 18th-century extension behind No. 105 is visible; it was originally three storeys, but has been reduced to two. The lower storeys contain many timbers of the original frame as well as late 18th and 19th-century hob grates. The staircase to No. 105 is of mid 19th-century date.

No. 111(A) has a S. elevation of three storeys in brick with pantiled roof and brick bands between the storeys. The base of the S. wall is of early 18th-century date with a contemporary window. All the internal fittings are of the early 19th century.

No. 111(B) is of two storeys with pantiled roof. The external timber-framing, apart from main posts, has been replaced by brickwork. The S. and W. walls are of late 17th or early 18th-century brick, the S. end having a tumbled gable. The ground-floor room has a chimney-breast contemporary with the brick walls, and panelling of both 17th and 18th-century dates. The first floor is reached by a late 18th-century staircase. Both rooms have early 18th-century fireplace surrounds with 19th-century hob grates. The 15th-century roof has two trusses of crown-post construction (see p. lxxii, Plate 49, and Fig. 62).

No. 111(C), of two storeys and semi-attic, is timber-framed with brick patchings and pantiled roof. The gabled S. end is of plastered brick, and the W. wall was rebuilt in the 19th century. The first floor is approached by a 19th-century staircase in an external addition. Originally the entrance must have been from No. 107 or 109, and the opening to the staircase a window (see p. lxxviii). The original framing survives, almost complete, on the E., S. and W. walls, and in the N. wall is a fireplace with a 19th-century hob grate. The semi-attic has 3 ft.-high walls, and the central roof-truss has sole-pieces carrying kerb-principals (see p. lxxiv, Fig. 63). It is lit by a window in the S. gable. Nos. 105–111 demolished in 1961.

(88) The Nag's Head, No. 100, consists of a three-storey unit of three bays, with its end to Micklegate and jettied, erected c. 1530; and at the back, behind a big brick chimney, a narrower wing originally of one storey only and perhaps built in the 14th century (see p. lxxii). In the 18th century the street front was rebuilt, and an attic formed in the main house. New staircases were put in an annexe, which had filled in the angle between the two old blocks in the late 17th or early 18th century. At an uncertain date a floor was inserted in the rear building. In the mid 18th century, the property belonged to Isabella Stockdale, who left it to two sisters, Jane and Sarah Coghill, who by 1777 were married to John Cawthery and William Powell of Leeds. In 1815– 23 the premises were sold by William Stockdale Powell, only son and heir of William and Sarah, to trustees for John Fryers Kilby, brewer (YCA, E.96, f. 246v.; E.97, f. 167v.), when the property included several buildings adjoining the yard and extending N. to Toft Green, formerly a malt kiln and stables. The messuage was 'used as a Public House called the Nag's Head, now in the occupation of John Smith Aledraper', formerly of Robert Mortimer aledraper and afterwards of Francis Lumb. From 1785 until after 1850 the Nag's Head also included No. 98 (86).

The narrow front with gable to the street is of 18th-century brick. A modern ground-floor window cuts into a projecting brick band. The first floor is lit by a handsome segmental bow window of c. 1810, having three sash lights under an entablature with dentilled cornice and fluted frieze. Internally, in the front part of the house some of the original main timber posts and beams are exposed and, on the second floor, some of the studwork of the side walls crossed by long straight struts. The roof is constructed of common rafters carried on side purlins supported by curved struts from the tie beams; there may be collars above the ceiling.

In the back range, main posts are exposed. One truss has a boldly cambered tie beam carrying a king-post and two raking struts but the upper part is concealed. A second truss has had the tie beam and braces under it all cut away. None of the original fireplaces remain; the existing staircase is partly modern and partly of c. 1840.

(89) House, Nos. 102, 104, is of late 17th-century date, but in the early 18th century the main front was refenestrated. The premises were divided into two in 1812, and bay windows were inserted in the Micklegate front c. 1850. The property, with other houses adjacent (see Nos. 100, 106, (88, 90)) belonged in the mid-18th century to Isabella Stockdale. In 1817 William Stockdale Powell sold Nos. 102, 104 to Francis Calvert, cordwainer, who had been the occupant from 1812. At that time the house was divided, the rates being apportioned on assessments of £3 10s. 0d. for No. 102, and £4 10s. 0d. for No. 104. Calvert himself occupied No. 102, and let No. 104 to a series of private residents until 1834, when he made this his own residence, while No. 102 became the business premises of Calvert & Son (YCA, E.97, f. 35v.; Borthwick Inst., Holy Trinity Rate Books; Directories).

The house is of three storeys and built of brick. It runs parallel to Micklegate with a relatively long frontage. The elevation to the street has at first floor two three-sided bay windows added c. 1850, and between them a sash window with narrow rubbed brick flat arch; above these windows a brick band may have been removed. At second floor are three windows with narrow flat arches; all windows have red brick reveals. Above is a heavy modillioned cornice returned at each end (18th century). The roof, with prominent equilateral gables (late 17th century), is covered with Welsh slates.

At the back are two projecting wings, and between them the wall of the main range is faced with 18th-century brickwork in which is a blocked round-headed window. The W. wing (Plate 54), of narrow red brick, is of two storeys and attics; at first-floor level is a moulded brick string. In the N. gable the first floor is lit by an early 19th-century sash window, in the blocking of a late 17th-century opening with a label above a flat arch. Above is a tumbled gable having a window with a brick pediment above a flat arch, and a blocked œil-debœuf above (Plate 51).

Some of the interior fittings are of the 18th century. The upper part of the staircase in No. 102 has a closed string, simple square newels with attached half balusters, and closely set turned balusters with square knops, comparable with the altar rails at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate.

(90) House, Nos. 106, 108, of the late 18th century, is undistinguished apart from a good entrance. It was probably built in 1778, as the rating assessment was raised in 1779 from £6 to £22. This was another property of W. S. Powell (see (88, 89)), let to private residents until 1822; from then until 1849 it was a girls' boarding school kept by the Misses Harriet Palmer and Elizabeth Ellis. Later in the 19th century a shop front was inserted, and in recent years a warehouse was added behind the ground floor.

The house is of three storeys and has a Victorian shop window, to E. of which the original entrance remains: Roman Doric columns support a pedimental hood containing a semicircular fanlight. The upper storeys are in brickwork in Flemish bond with a continuous band joining the first-floor window sills. There are two sash windows to each upper floor below a modillioned and dentilled cornice at the eaves. Internally, the upper part of the staircase, placed transversely between front and back rooms, has slender turned balusters, two to each tread, and a slender mahogany veneered handrail. Demolished 1967, but original entrance doorway reinstated in new building.

(91) House, No. 110, built in the early 18th century, has been so drastically remodelled that only the staircase and roof remain unaltered. About 1778, when the adjacent house (Nos. 106, 108) was built, the staircase windows were blocked and the house modernised; most fittings are of the late 18th or early 19th century. Like the adjacent houses (88–90) this formed part of the Stockdale property and was sold by W. S. Powell in 1815 (YCA, E.96, f. 250v.). In 1820 it was resold to the occupier, Thomas Mawson, a combmaker (E.97, f. 110).

The house is of three storeys and the front is stuccoed above modern shop fronts; each of the upper floors has two windows in original openings, but with modern casements. At the eaves is a dentilled and modillioned cornice, carried through from Nos. 106, 108.

The plan of the house is similar to that of No. 106 but has the fireplaces placed diagonally across the corners of the rooms. The staircase which now starts at the first floor has square newels, heavy moulded handrail and closed string with boldly overhanging capping which carries turned balusters, some of an early bulbous form and others of rather later design with and without square knops.

(92) House, No. 112, until recently the Red Lion public house, was built in the 16th century as a timber-framed structure with a gable to Micklegate, possibly jettied. In the 18th century it was refronted with brick and the roof hipped back; c. 1860–70 the front was refenestrated, with a large shop window to ground floor, a bay window to first floor and one sash replacing two above. This was an ancient property of the Vicars Choral of York Minster and the leases show that it was partly rebuilt between 1745 and 1748 (York Minster Library, Sub-Chanter's Book 3, 75).

The house is of three storeys, built in two bays with a chimney against the back wall. Some of the timber framing is exposed inside, with curved braces rising from the posts to rails and wall-plates.

The original roof is almost intact. The truss to N. has principal rafters and a straight tie-beam; curved struts from tie to rafters support the purlins. The central truss is carried on great posts, their heads not enlarged, supporting a markedly cambered tie-beam; curved braces from each post support the tie-beam. The principals are connected by a collar; from the tie curved braces, morticed into the collar, support purlins under the principals. The S. truss vanished when the roof was hipped, but a good series of common rafters remains, all with collars.

(93) House, No. 113, was built about 1740; it was of three storeys and comprised a front block and a wing projecting at the back. About 1811, a fourth storey was added to the front block, the street front was remodelled, and the upper part of the back wing was altered. The back range was extended c. 1820–30, and a pleasant S. front to the garden created; a little later a small block was added at the S.E. corner. In 1736, when occupied by Mrs. Jane Palmes, this house was bought by John Theakston, whitesmith (YCA, E.93, f. 87), who sold it in the next year to William Greene, gent., owner of the adjacent 'large messuage' on W., the former No. 115 (E.93, f. 103). It was probably the 'large new built sash'd house in occupation of Roger Meynel esq.' advertised by Mr. William Green in 1742 (York Courant, 23 Feb.), with a coach-house and two stables for six and two horses respectively. A succession of tenants occupied the house during the later 18th and early 19th centuries, among them Thomas Jennings, esq., from 1779 until 1821. During his occupancy, in 1812, the rating assessment was advanced from £5 to £9, and this presumably indicates that the extensive alterations and additions to the house had just been done. Apart from general reassessment of the parish, no further change took place until after 1850, when the owner and occupier was the Rt. Rev. Dr. John Briggs.

The front elevation, of four storeys, in pale-coloured stock brick with red brick dressings above a stone plinth, is of the 18th century, with alterations of c. 1811. The entrance, tall and narrow, has an early 19th-century door-case flanked by reeded columns with formalised leaf caps, under a flat entablature. To E. are two sash windows and to W. a modern window. At first floor are two large segmental bow windows (c. 1811), each having a moulded wooden base with brickwork above, three sashes, reeded pilaster jambs, plain roundel paterae to the caps, a fluted frieze, and simple cornice. The second floor has two sash windows, and in the top storey are two windows the same width as those below but less than half the height.

The front block has one front room beside the entrance hall on the ground floor and a saloon extending the full width of the house on the first floor; the back wing contains the staircase and two rooms beyond. The extension provided one large room on each of the main floors. Nearly all the fittings are of the 19th century but the doorway to the saloon has the original enriched architrave and cornice to the landing, and towards the room a 19th-century architrave under the original cornice (Plate 66). The 18th-century stairs up to the second floor remain (Plate 86), with cut string and turned balusters (Fig. 18j). There are also some 18th-century doors, of three fielded panels (Plate 66). Demolished 1960.

(94) House, No. 114, was built in the second half of the 17th century, with two storeys and cellars. A third storey was added in the mid 19th century and during the same century many alterations were made throughout. The freehold of the property belonged in the 18th century to Ann Thorp, who married John Heron of Sculcoates, and to their descendants, but the house was leased to Edward Bedingfield, esq. (1730–1802), a son of Sir Henry Bedingfield, 3rd baronet. Edward settled at York about the time of his marriage in 1754 to Mary, daughter of Sir John Swinburne of Capheaton. Of the ten children born to Edward and Mary between 1754 and 1771, while this was their home, only one had issue, Anne, born here on 21 March 1758: she married Thomas Waterton of Walton Hall near Wakefield and became the mother of Charles Waterton the celebrated naturalist. Edward died here in 1802 (York Courant, 17 May), and his widow moved to No. 109 The Mount (50), letting this house to Richard Hansom (1746–1818), carpenter, who soon afterwards bought the freehold for £450 (YCA, E.96, f. 6v.). Hansom's grandson Joseph Aloysius Hansom (1803–82), architect and inventor of the hansom cab, is stated to have been born here on 26 October 1803, and the property continued in the family until late in the 19th century (Borthwick Inst., Rate Books of Holy Trinity, Micklegate; Directories). It included a garden extending back to Toft Green, where the former stable was converted by the Hansoms into a joinery workshop. By 1881 the premises were occupied by a provision merchant.

The street front (Plate 53) is of red brick above a modern shop front; the larger bricks of the top storey show its later date. The back has a 19th-century gable above 17th-century brickwork of the lower storeys.

The ground floor has been converted to a shop. The Staircase (Plate 84) rises against the E. wall, and has turned oak balusters like those of the altar rails at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, dated 1675. Between the lower floors, the staircase is lit by a two-light window with original oak mullion and high transom. On the first floor, the larger of the two front rooms is lined with fielded panelling (Fig. 16f) with dado rail and cornice; it has an early 19th-century marble surround to the fireplace. A room at the back retains an 18th-century moulded fireplace surround.

(95) House, Nos. 118, 120, was built c. 1742, by Robert Bower, who had bought the site for £170 on 28 August 1741 (YCA, E.93, f. 131) from Samuel Waud. The new house was certainly built before March 1750/1, when the tenants of the Vicars Choral in No. 116 were complaining that the 'new house of Mr. Bowers ... blinds some of their lights' (York Minster Library, SubChanter's Book 2, 489). Bower, who already owned the adjacent No. 122 (96), may have lived here for a time (York Journal, 3 Feb. 1747), but in 1757 he sold the property for £900 to Matthew Chitty St. Quintin (YCA, E.94, f. 12v.), who had been the occupier at least from 1754 (Miss I. Pressly in York Georgian Society, Report 1948–9). St. Quintin died in 1785, leaving the house to his nephew Sir William St. Quintin, 5th baronet, who advertised it for sale as 'the very neat convenient dwelling house, with stable and coach house and garden adjoining, paintings and pictures' (York Courant, 23 Aug.). The purchaser was Stephen Atkinson of Knaresborough, who lived here for a short time but in 1790 sold the property for £830 to William Taylor (E.95, f. 100v.), from whose widow it was acquired in 1806 by George Peacock, printer and proprietor of the York Courant, Lord Mayor in 1810 and in 1820, who made it his home until his death in 1836. For many years the house continued to be a private residence, but by 1872 it was occupied by Edward Sherwood, a warehouseman, and the present shop-front is of the late 19th century. In 1893 the freehold was bought by Edward Williamson, a dyer, who later pulled down the coachhouse and stable on Toft Green and built a factory there (Mrs. E. Wilson in York Georgian Society, Report 1968, 31–5).

During the later 18th century, probably after 1763 (when an act of Parliament provided that houses fronting a main street should lead the water from roof to ground in proper fall-pipes), a parapet was built above the dentilled string of the top storey, and the present door-case (Plate 63) added to the entrance. At Peacock's death in 1836 the house was advertised as comprising 'a drawing room and dining-room, three lodging rooms, with a dressing room attached to each; two servants' sleeping rooms and four small attic rooms; and certain convenient kitchens, a butler's pantry, larder and good cellars' (Yorks. Gazette, 16 Jan.) (Fig. 64). In the early 19th century, the second floor S. bedroom and its dressing room were combined, various fireplaces modified, and the overmantel in the panelled room to S. enriched with decorative motifs, perhaps replacing a painting. The back range was probably added by 1836, and all windows, except one in the attics and a stair light, given new glazing bars. In 1948–9 the house was restored by J. Stuart Syme, becoming the York Georgian Society's headquarters until 1967. The house is now again in private ownership and in 1968 the ground floor was skilfully restored to its original character.

The front (Plate 184) is in brickwork with fine red brick dressings, projecting brick bands, and brick cornice. The added parapet has piers to the angles. The back wall (Plate 184) is in pale brick, with fine red brick dressings; it rises to a brick gable above a brick-on-edge dentilled cornice. At the N.E. angle is a lead fall-pipe with holdfasts enriched with fleurs-de-lis.

The front ground-floor room, though so long used as a shop, retains remarkably good early Georgian fittings: moulded skirting, chair rail, panels with moulded raised surrounds, and a very deep dentilled cornice. In the N.W. wall, the central fireplace (Plate 72) has an overmantel with a seascape by Adam Willaerts (b. Utrecht 1577, d. 1666) under an enriched entablature with an eagle and swags on a central panel and broken pediment above. To either side of the fireplace are matching doorcases and doors, one opening to the stair hall, one to a cupboard. The Staircase (Plate 87) rises from cellar to attics, in the middle of the house between front and back rooms. It has cantilevered treads, heavy turned newels and turned balusters three to a tread, with square knops and every third stem twisted. Under each landing is a moulded ceiling, and, in the cellar, a floor of Sicilian marble.

On the first floor the Saloon at the front of the house is a splendid example of early Georgian interior decoration; it has a plain dado between skirting and chair rail, moulded and fielded panelling (Fig. 16c) above with panelled shutters to the windows and a modillion cornice. The elaborate fireplace (Plate 183), in the N.W. wall, has in the overmantel a later insertion consisting of a panel with Classical figures in bas relief, probably by the firm of Wolstenholme, within a border of vine guilloche. The iron grate is a reproduction of Adam type by Carron. At the back of the house are a bedroom and dressing room panelled throughout, the former with moulded skirting, dado rail and cornice. In the S.E. wall is an original Georgian marble fireplace (Plate 73), with frieze, cornice and overmantel above; the frieze, of carved pine, has a naturalistic foliage arabesque, and the overmantel a raised eared surround. The rooms on the second floor retain original fireplaces and other fittings but are not panelled.

(96) House, Nos. 122, 124, 126, was originally two houses. In the late 17th century, the E. house was built; it still retains two bolection-moulded panelled rooms at first floor, a flight of the original staircase at attic level, and the original roof. Early in the 18th century, the house to W. was rebuilt and the two merged into one, the lower three flights of the staircase, with the hall and landing, being rebuilt in the latest fashion. These alterations were probably carried out at the time of the marriage of Robert Bower, mercer (1705–77), to Tabitha Burdett of Sleights in 1738 (Northallerton N.R. Registry of Deeds, A 487. 594; c 74.32). Bower occupied the house until his death, and his widow lived there until 1784, after which it passed through the hands of several private residents until it was sold in 1833 (Yorks. Gazette, 10 Aug.). From 1834 the occupant was John Hopps, surgeon (d. 1850), who was succeeded by William Drinkall, a grocer; by 1876 the property had been redivided and was in the hands of Edward Hill, grocer, and Mr. Cutforth, shoemaker (Rate Books; Directories). In 1756 railings in front of the house were 'maliciously broke and destroyed' (York Courant, 24 Aug.).

The Front Elevation, of three storeys, in brick, is of two separate builds; a straight joint, seen above the 19th-century shop front, divides them. No. 122 (to E.) has, at first floor, two sash windows with flat single gauged brick arches; the upper half of the second floor has been considerably rebuilt, with a new parapet. No. 126 has, at first floor, two tall sash windows with flat arches and stone sills and, at second floor, a projecting band, and two casements with red brick dressings and modern concrete arches. The Rear Elevation is also of two separate builds: that to E. (Plate 184) is of rather narrow red brick with projecting bands and a gable. The house to W., considerably set back, is of three storeys in pinkish-white brick. It is roofed in two spans parallel to the street.

The ground floor, of L-shaped plan, has three rooms and central entrance passage, to which the staircase is set at right angles. The entrance passage has an enriched plaster cornice; leading off to the stair hall is a moulded arch supported on fluted pilasters. In the stair hall the moulded ceiling, of simple geometrical pattern, remains intact. In the S.W. room, now a shop, the E. and W. walls retain panelling and a modillioned cornice.

The Staircase rises from ground floor to attics in four flights; the first three flights, with open string, are mid 18th-century (Plates 84, 87; Fig. 18m), the fourth and landing balustrade 17th-century (Plate 87). The later staircase has rail, string, balusters and treads all of softwood. The last flight and top landing have a moulded rail, square newels with moulded caps, a closed string and bulbous balusters, set fairly far apart. On the first floor the two rooms in the earlier part to the E. are lined with panelling (Fig. 16b) and one has a simple early 18th-century fireplace (Plate 74) and cupboards. Above, the original 17th-century oak roof timbers remain.

(97) House, Nos. 128, 130, 132, is on a site owned in 1739 by the Widow Mountain and occupied by James Thompson (YCA, E.93, f. 118); it passed to Henry Jubb, an eminent medical practitioner (1720–92), who probably built the present house about the time he became Sheriff in 1754–5; he was Lord Mayor in 1773 (Davies, 140). By 1798 the property belonged to his only child Dorothy and her husband, Major William Thompson, who sold it in 1801 to Robert Swann, the banker (d. 1858). Swann occupied the house until 1833 and left it to his son John, who immediately sold it to William Cook, joiner; it was sold to Frederick John Day, veterinary surgeon, in 1863, and to John Henry Shouksmith in 1883. For a period about 1850 the house was leased to the Ordnance Survey as their York headquarters (Title Deeds; Directories). The property, originally two messuages, became united when the present house was built, but by 1863 had been divided again.

The street front, three-storeyed in stuccoed brick, has stringcourses above and below the top storey, and a parapet. Above a modern shop front each storey has four sash windows, with flat arches and stuccoed key-blocks. The roof is covered with modern pantiles. The back has small projecting wings to E. and W. (Plate 55). There are brick bands continued around the wings, at first and second-floor levels.

Internally, some of the rooms retain original cornices and doors; part of the staircase is made up of old materials including turned and twisted balusters of c. 1730–40.

(98) House, Nos. 134, 136, occupies the site of old houses sold by Jeremiah Ridsdale, baker, to Thomas Brown, esq., of Middlethorpe (YCA, E.93, f. 118). Brown built the present house in 1740, when a Roman statue was found while digging the foundations (York Courant, 8 and 22 April). In 1759 Brown sold to Charles Radcliffe, esq. of Heath the house and offices 'as the same have been lately new built by the said Thomas Brown ...' in the occupation of the Hon. Marmaduke Langdale (later 5th Lord Langdale, d. 1778). Radcliffe died in 1768, leaving the house to his daughters Frances and Elizabeth. Between 1775 and 1790 this was the town house of the widowed Lady Goodricke and her son Sir Henry, the 6th baronet (d. 1802), the owner of Trinity Gardens on the other side of Micklegate. They were followed by members of the family of Duffin, occupants until 1851, (Davies, 133; Rate Books; Directories). In 1863 the freehold passed from descendants of the Radcliffes to Henry Crummack, surgeon and apothecary, who left it to his wife; in 1883 the property was sold to Samuel Richard Brown Franks. The red brick front was added during the period when the building was well-known as Franks' Hotel.

The front was refaced with cherry-red brick c. 1900; openings remain in their original positions at first and second floors. Above is a modillioned cornice, almost certainly reused, and an early 19th-century waterhead, with fluted bowl and moulded cornice, and lead pipe with opposed fleurs-de-lis on the holdfasts. The roof is hipped. The W. side, nearly all cased with the same modern brick, has a dormer with pedimental head, probably original. The original three separate square or oblong stacks of the main chimney are now conjoined by a later head. The back (Plate 55) is of flecked red brick with projecting bands and double gable. Only the first-floor windows retain original sashes.

The entrance hall at the W. side of the house, leads to a central lobby off which the main staircase lies to the back of the house and a secondary staircase (partly removed) to the E. The rooms have been modernised, but that to the front retains a good plaster ceiling. A fireplace surround removed from this room belongs to the York Georgian Society.

From ground to first floor, the main Staircase (Plate 87) has turned balusters (Fig. 181); at the bottom the oak handrail is swept down to a turned and enriched newel (Plate 84). At the half-landing is a large stair light, with moulded round arch supported on Composite-order pilasters; its lower half has been removed. From first floor to attics, the staircase has coarser balusters and square newels (Plate 85).

Most of the rooms on first and second floors have original cornices and one retains a fireplace with heavy moulded stone surround. In the attics the floor is of gypsum plaster; most doors are original, having two large fielded panels. The roof timbers are also original.

(99) House, No. 138, was built as a timber-framed L-shaped structure in the 17th century, remaining evidence being some framing in the back range, a chimney, and the upper part of the staircase. The back walls were rebuilt, or cased in brick, c. 1700; window openings and a fireplace surround of this date remain. Soon after 1850 the house was drastically remodelled and refronted. The house was for several generations the property of the Fothergill family, who sometimes lived in it, and it remained a private residence until after 1850 (YCA, E.93, f. 118; Rate Books; Directories).

The front, of stuccoed brick, has a mid 19th-century shop front and four sash windows above with a stucco-dressed band at sill level. The back of the main range, of narrow brick, has a two-course band between the storeys and, above, to W., a gable. To E. a wing projects at right angles, built of the same brick and with the same narrow band as the main range. A chimney has a 17th-century diagonally-set shaft.

On the first floor there is timber framing in the back wing and a fire-place with bolection-moulded surround. The remnant of a 17th-century staircase (now sealed off) has a heavy moulded rail, closed string, square newel with halfbaluster attached to one face, and heavy turned bulbous balusters; those on the top landing are somewhat thinner.

(100) House, Nos. 142, 144, 146, was probably the ancient house of the Waller family and may incorporate remains of the new house called 'le read-brick house' of Thomas Waller (d. 1609), mentioned early in the 17th century (Davies, 138). The main campaign of building may have been due to Robert Waller, Sheriff in 1674–5, Lord Mayor 1684, and M.P. 1690, who died in 1698. In 1720 Ann Waller, widow of Matthew Waller, gent., sold the freehold to Nathaniel Wilson, a merchant (YCA, E.93, f. 6); the house was then occupied by Thomas Selby, esq., still in residence in 1746 (York Journal, 10 Feb. 1747). Subsequent occupiers included members of the families of Wintringham, Lawson and Corneille (Davies, 139). Major Bartholomew Corneille was the owner in 1774–7 (Rate Books; YCA, E.94, f. 197v.), and his widow continued to live in the house until 1806. For many years thereafter the property remained in the hands of William Gage, esq., and his daughters, Miss Margaret Gage and Mrs. George Anne, until 1843. It was probably Mr. Gage, c. 1810, who rebuilt the upper part of the Micklegate front; the rear dates mostly from the late 17th century.

The front elevation, comprising a range of three houses, now contains shop windows at ground floor; above are sash windows with flush frames, timber sills and flat arches of gauged rubbed brick; and on the second floor, small sash windows over those below. From the level of the first-floor window arches, the building has been heightened, in coarser brickwork. The back (Plate 54), covered at ground floor by a modern industrial building, had originally two late 17th-century gabled wings with a narrow space between, which was later filled by a brick three-storeyed structure with a gable, probably in the early 18th century. The wings have limestone ashlar quoins and shaped kneelers; a three-course brick band at the base of each gable has been matched in the central structure. At first floor, the E. gable has a modern window set in a 17th-century opening with a three-centred arched head; the central window of the W. wing has been partly concealed but part of its arch remains. In the central section the arch of an old window remains, probably of the 18th century. The inside has been much altered and most of the fittings are of the first half of the 19th century.