29, Trinity Lane

This is a manufactory, later used as an orphanage and laundry, and now converted into flats. The core of the building dates to the early 17th century and was extensively remodelled in the late 17th century, with further alterations in the early 19th century. An extension was added around 1895. The original building was constructed for Nicholas Towers.

The building is constructed primarily of orange-red brick, largely in English garden-wall bond, with some random bond. The extension is similar brickwork but with a rendered first floor. Timberwork includes a doorcase and eaves cornice, and the roofs are hipped with pantiles. Brick stacks are present on both the original building and the extension.

The main front is a three-storey, five-bay design with a two-storey extension to the left, featuring irregular window placement. A central entrance is marked by a doorcase with plain pilasters and a bracketed hood, sheltering a recessed door made of six panels, four raised and fielded, two fluted, and a decorative glazed overlight within a panelled reveal. The outer bays have half-glazed doors with overlights. Several windows have been blocked, but visible windows are 12-pane sashes with painted stone sills, and mostly flat arches of gauged bricks. Vestiges of 17th-century segmental arches are visible in the left-hand end bay, and the two left bays feature a mutilated modillion eaves cornice that returns at the left end. A fluted rainwater head with fallpipe and fleur-de-lys holdfast clamps is located between these bays. The extension has 20th-century windows and a first-floor string course.

The rear of the main building includes a fine pair of external chimney stacks, a round-headed staircase window, and sash windows. A wing at the rear is largely obscured by later construction. The upper floor of the wing has four half-dormers with hipped roofs and tapered finials; three have 2-light casements and one has replacement glazing. Projecting bracketed eaves incorporate guttering carried on wrought-iron scrolls.

The interior features extensive brick-vaulted cellars. A room on the ground floor to the right has a large fireplace with a four-centred brick arch. The remainder of the building contains excellent early 19th-century doors and door surrounds, window and window surrounds with reeding and paterae. There is an early 19th-century staircase with thin fluted balusters. Some rooms have early 19th-century fireplaces, again reeded with paterae.

The original building was erected as a soap-boiling factory by Nicholas Towers (Sheriff of York in 1657) and was known as 'Towers Folly'. From around 1800 to 1851, it operated as a horn and shell comb factory owned by John Nutt. Later, it became the residence of Rev. Henry Vaughan Palmer, whose daughter, Henrietta, became an authoress writing under the pseudonym 'John Strange Winter'.