Blue Anchor Public House (Part) and Rear Building on Lawson's Yard

This is a house, dating to around 1700, that is now part of the Blue Anchor Public House and has shops on Market Street, Lancaster. It was restored in 1990. The building is constructed of sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings, and has a slate roof with a gable stack to the right. It is three storeys high, with a cellar below, and has a four-bay front, complemented by a rear wing that creates an L-shaped layout.

The ground floor now contains timber shop fronts installed in 1990. The first floor features rebated and chamfered cross windows, while the second floor has two-light, rebated and chamfered mullioned windows. These windows are replicas of the originals, created in 1990 after fragments of stonework were discovered when the building’s render was removed.

The rear wing, located to the right, opens onto Lawson’s Yard, which now has a glazed roof and access through a doorway left of the shop fronts. Originally, bays one to four formed a separate house, with the original doorway in bay three (now a window), replaced by a doorway in bay two. Bays five to seven formed the rear wing of the house on Market Street, featuring a back door in bay five (now a window). Moulded architraves frame all ground and first-floor doorways and windows. The second-floor windows have two lights with chamfered jambs and mullions, and occasionally diamond fixed lights.

The interior of the house on Market Street has an open-well staircase, with closed and panelled strings, fluted square newel posts, and handrails of a heavy cross-section supported by two fluted balusters per tread. The house on Lawson’s Yard features a closed-string staircase running parallel to the yard in single flights, with two fluted balusters per tread. This pair of houses represents a unique example of a fairly common type found in Georgian Lancaster, making them historically and visually significant. The property was initially listed on 17 June 1987.