County House

County House, formerly known as County Hospital, is a building located on Monkgate in York. It was constructed between 1849 and 1851 by architects J.B. and W. Atkinson, with gas lamps designed by William Walker. The structure is made of red brick with sandstone dressings and features a hipped slate roof.

The building has a long rectangular plan and consists of three storeys above a basement, with a total of 15 bays on its facade. The exterior includes a deep rusticated plinth, quoin strips on either side, moulded sill bands on the first and second floors, a plain frieze, and a dentilled stone cornice beneath bracketed timber eaves. The basement is illuminated by low rectangular window openings within the plinth, while the other windows are glazing bar sashes with architraves. The ground floor windows are adorned with cornices on consoles, and the first-floor architraves are lugged, featuring cornices and pulvinated friezes. The second-floor architraves are also lugged, with central windows that are tripartite.

The first-floor window has a segmental pediment over its central light, and below its sill, there is a panel of rusticated masonry that contains the entrance doorway. This doorway has pilaster reveals and a moulded round arch, set within a surround that includes voussoirs and quoined jambs of vermiculated rustication, topped with a keystone carved with a female head. The doors consist of six panels divided into two leaves. The external stone steps and side walls have been renewed in 20th-century concrete and brickwork, supporting elaborate lamp standards with copper lanterns, which are inscribed 'W. WALKER YORK'. There are eight chimneys visible behind the ridge. The interior has not been inspected. The building was closed as a hospital in 1977.