Minster Song School (Part)

The Minster Song School (part) comprises a pair of houses, dating to 1837, and subsequently altered and extended. They were designed by J.P. Pritchett for the Dean and Chapter, with staircase ironwork by the Walker Foundry. The building is constructed of limestone ashlar, with later extensions of orange-grey brick, and has slate roofs. It features ashlar octagonal stacks, tripled at the right gable end with moulded caps, and brick stacks at the rear. The architectural style is Gothick.

The exterior presents two storeys and cellars, with a seven-bay front that terminates in embattled octagonal turrets. A gabled centre bay is flanked by two-stage buttresses. The front has cellar openings, and doorways with four-centred heads, plain board doors, and overlights with paired cinquefoiled lights. Ground floor windows are square-headed, with sloped sills, and consist of three cinquefoiled lights. The first-floor centre window is two tiers of three cinquefoiled lights in a traceried two-centred head. Other first-floor windows are similar to the ground floor, but with two lights. All openings have double hollow-chamfered reveals and coved hoodmoulds with return stops. Coved string courses at the first floor and eaves levels encircle the turrets. The embattled parapet has moulded coping. The left and right returns have ground and first floor windows corresponding with those on the front. The right return has a three-light plain window to the cellar. Attic windows have two-centred openings, with paired pointed lights in the left return and a single light beneath a coved hood in the right return.

The interior of No.8 has a cast-iron balustrade to the staircase, featuring traceried panels. In No.9, the balustrade displays vine scroll motifs. Both houses retain fireplaces in a Gothick style, with castellated surrounds, tracery panelled jambs, or quatrefoiled friezes. Surviving plaster cornices and ceilings include those in the entrance passage and hall of No.9.