Greycourt

LANCASTER

SD4761NW ST MARY'S GATE 1685-1/6/286 (North side) 22/12/53 No.2 Greycourt (Formerly Listed as: CHURCH STREET No.2 Greycourt)

GV II

House. c1792, restored c1987. For Mr Richard Postlethwaite. Sandstone ashlar, brought to a smoother face on the facade, and a slate roof with gable stacks to left and right. Double-depth plan. 3 storeys above a tall basement which, because of the steep cross-fall of the ground accommodates on the right a wide lintelled coach entrance. 3 widely-spaced bays with a roll-moulded band above the basement, an ovolo-moulded sill band on the first floor, a plain sill band on the second floor, and an eaves cornice with a blocking course. All the windows, which have 12- or 9-pane sashes, have moulded architraves. Those on the first floor have a plain cornice supported on capitals which rise from the architrave, while those on the ground floor have slightly wider plain cornices carried on fluted consoles outside the architraves. The doorway, to the left, has a similar cornice and a door with more raised and fielded panels beneath an overlight. The doorway is approached along a terrace above the Church Steps (qv), and this has railings with cast-iron stick balusters and 'turned' standards with ball finials. The rear elevation includes one bay with tripartite glazing bar sash windows and has a porch with a door of 9 raised and fielded panels. INTERIOR: restored in the late 1980s, when partition walls installed when the house was in multiple occupation were removed. Entrance hall contains mahogany dogleg staircase with open string, Tuscan columns as newels, stick balusters, and ramped handrail. The main living room, to the right at the front on the ground floor, contains a marble fireplace in a Grecian style. This was previously in an upstairs bedroom and may originally have been supplied by Websters of Kendal. HISTORY: the house was built for Richard Postlethwaite, who also rebuilt Gardyner's Charity almshouses, which adjoined the house at right angles to the left but which are now demolished. A booklet published in 1978 to accompany an exhibition of the work of Thomas Harrison at Lancaster University suggested that the design of the house and almshouses may have been by Harrison. (Cross Fleury (pseud.): Time-Honoured Lancaster: Lancaster: 1891-: 41).

Listing NGR: SD4743461908