The Black Swan Public House

THE BLACK SWAN PUBLIC HOUSE, PEASHOLME GREEN, YORK

House, now public house. Late 16th century with early and late 17th century extensions; renovation and further extension in the 20th century. Timber-framed with front plastered and whitewashed, buff-orange brick in random bond elsewhere; roofs of tile and pantile with brick stacks.

EXTERIOR

The front features twin gables of 2 storeys and attic, with jettied first floor and exposed timber-framing, largely renewed. To the right is a 2-storey extension with gabled attic and 2 windows; to the left, a 20th-century 2-storey extension. A door to the right of centre has attached geometric panelling. Windows are single- or multi-light leaded casements with renewed timber mullions and transoms. The twin gables have vine-carved bargeboards and pendants.

At the rear, gabled wings project behind later extensions. The right wing has altered windows beneath moulded brick pediments—segmental on the first floor and triangular in the attic—and a broad moulded attic band. In return to the left, the ground floor features an arcade of blind round arches. The left wing has a triangular pediment over a 20th-century 2-light window on the first floor. The left return contains 20th-century extensions flanking an early 17th-century gabled wing of 2 storeys and attic with jettied upper floors. This wing has a 5-light casement window on the ground floor and similar 2-light windows on upper floors. Further left, a late 17th-century 2-storey extension behind a 20th-century addition has two first floor windows in rendered quoined surrounds.

INTERIOR

Ground floor: A stone-flagged entrance passage has an elliptical keyed arch to the stairhall. Three doorcases with pilasters support moulded cornices; two have pulvinated friezes and contemporary panelled doors, while one has an added bolection-moulded architrave to a door of 6 fielded panels.

The front left room is lined with reset 17th-century panelling and has a bolection-moulded fire surround beneath a painted overmantel panel set between squat sunk-panel pilasters with moulded cornice. The ceiling is coffered with intersecting beams with moulded soffits. A half-domed semicircular niche with shaped shelves on shaped brackets is a notable feature.

The open-well staircase has panelled risers, moulded close string, bulbous balusters, heavy moulded handrail, and square newels with ball and pedestal finials and pierced pendants. A 2-panel door sits beneath the stairs.

The rear left room has chamfered beams and a huge fireplace beneath a chamfered timber bressumer.

First floor: The front room is lined with full-height panelling in moulded surrounds, painted in trompe l'oeil with rectangular and oval raised panels containing figures, and incorporating a door on H-L hinges. A pulvinated frieze is painted with laurel leaves. The fireplace is lined with reset blue and white tiles beneath a moulded cornice shelf and shaped panel overmantel enclosed in a moulded frame and painted with allegorical figures in a pastoral scene; both parts are flanked by sunk-panel pilasters. The ceiling is coffered by heavy beams with moulded soffits. Panel paintings are almost indecipherable.