7, The College

No. 7 The College is a Grade II* listed building in Durham, originally a prebendal house that features medieval fabric with alterations from the 17th and 18th centuries. It is constructed of sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings and has brick chimneys. The building has a basement and two storeys, comprising eight bays.

The basement includes a segmental brick arch on the left over a recessed boarded door, with a similar door in a shouldered arch at the right of the third bay. There are steps leading up to a terrace in front of a six-panel door, which is framed by an architrave with a pulvinated frieze and a prominent cornice, featuring eroded coats of arms in a panel above the door. The sash windows, which have glazing bars, display varying surrounds, including some with flat stone lintels and sills, as well as alternate-block jambs. There are traces of removed label moulds that were wider than the current windows. The building has a corbelled-out parapet with shaped sloped coping and two round-moulded rainwater heads. The flat-coped walls on either side of the door terrace contain the entrance to No. 8 The College on the right return. The roof is flat on the left side and steeply pitched over the two right bays.

Inside, the hall and some rooms feature bolection-moulded panelling, and there is a blocked lugged chimney piece in the front hall wall. The ground-floor ceiling has deeply-moulded beams and square plaster panels. The closed-string dog-leg staircase has a ramped moulded handrail supported by slender turned balusters and a column newel, while a plainer rear stair has a curved landing. The first floor includes corbelled wall posts, some of which are covered in moulded plaster, and many chimney pieces dating from around 1700.