Treasurers House And Attached Garden Walls, Gate And Gate Piers

Treasurer's House and attached garden walls, gate and gate piers

This substantial town house on the north-east side of Minster Yard represents an early 17th-century rebuilding of a 16th-century house. It was subdivided in the early 18th century and later periods, then underwent significant alteration, extension and restoration between 1898 and 1900. The early 17th-century house was built for Thomas Young, and the late 19th-century restoration was carried out by the architect Temple Moore for Mr F Green. The present garden was created around 1900.

Materials and construction

The main house front facing Minster Yard is built of magnesian limestone on a moulded stone plinth. The rear elevation comprises a magnesian limestone range on a stone plinth between stone-quoined crosswings faced in orange-red brick laid in English garden-wall bond. The front facing Chapter House Street is constructed of orange brick in random bond with cornices of stone and timber. A porch extension of orange brick with stone dressings is incorporated into a yard wall of grey-brown brick in Flemish bond with flat stone coping. The roofs are tiled with stone-coped Dutch gables and brick chimney stacks. The garden wall is built of limestone rubble incorporating fragments of medieval masonry, with brick coping. The gate piers are of red brick in Flemish bond, and the gate and screen are of wrought iron.

Main front (Minster Yard elevation)

The principal façade comprises a two-storey, five-bay central range flanked by twin gabled crosswings. The left crosswing has two storeys with basement and attic; the right crosswing has three storeys with attic. The centre range features a two-storey frontispiece with paired Doric columns on the ground floor, raised on high plinths and with a full entablature. The first floor has panelled Ionic pilasters with entablature. A flight of shallow steps leads to panelled double doors with a blocked fanlight set in a keyed architrave. The windows are cross-windows with decorative leaded casements. A moulded string course runs over the ground floor windows and continues across the crosswing returns and gable ends. A similar string over the first floor windows continues across the left crosswing return only. A moulded eaves cornice breaks above the pilasters and continues at different levels over the crosswing returns. The rainwater goods include an embattled hopper dated 1898.

The left crosswing has chamfered window openings to the basement, three 24-pane sash windows on the ground floor, and two Venetian windows with radial-glazed centre sashes on the first floor. Each attic gable contains two six-pane Yorkshire sash windows beneath pediment hoods. The return elevation has one 24-pane sash window on each floor.

The right crosswing has five cross-windows with square-paned leaded lights on the ground floor. The first floor features two pairs of cross-windows beneath a moulded string course that rises as a segmental pediment over each pair. On the second floor is a single transomed light with segmental pediment, flanked by cross-windows with triangular pediments. The attic has a single fixed window in a chamfered opening with segmental pediment to each gable. The return has one cross-window on the ground and first floors. Throughout this elevation, mullions and transoms are chamfered.

Gray's Court front (rear elevation)

The central range is of two storeys with basement, five bays wide, with the left bay gabled and containing an attic. The left crosswing is a single Dutch-gabled range of three storeys. The right crosswing consists of two Dutch-gabled parallel ranges of two storeys with attic. The main range has a truncated external chimney stack to the right of centre. Windows in the gabled bay are 12-pane sashes: two each on the ground and first floors, and one on the third floor with a moulded cornice to the width of the original window. In the gable apex, a moulded hood survives over a blocked former attic opening. Elsewhere in the main range are restored mullioned windows, some with transoms. A moulded string course over the ground floor openings runs across the full width of the crosswings and main range. The roofline has a parapet with moulded coping.

The left crosswing gable end has a single cross-window with timber mullion and transom, square lattice casements and flat brick arch on each floor, with a moulded stone hood on the first floor. Windows on the return are oeil-de-boeuf in brick surrounds on the ground floor, and narrow eight-pane sashes with single-course segmental brick arches on the upper floors. The right crosswings have small 17th-century basement windows above the plinth and an extruded shaft between the ranges. The left gable has an inset Venetian window with radial-glazed centre sash on the ground and first floors. The right gable has a three-light square-latticed timber mullioned and transomed window on the ground and first floors, with flat brick arch on the ground floor. Both first floor windows have stone pediment hoods. Attic windows are paired eight-pane sashes with stone hoodmoulds.

Chapter House Street front

The right return facing Chapter House Street presents a three-storey, eight-window front behind a yard wall approximately two metres high, with an entrance porch incorporated at the left end. The porch has a round-arched opening with enlarged keyblock between Ionic pilasters carrying an open pediment containing a defaced shield of arms of Green in the tympanum. The archway is closed by a wrought-iron gate, screen and overthrow with lantern. The entrance is a six-panel door recessed at the rear of the porch. A glazed and panelled side door beneath a swan-necked pediment opens to the yard behind the wall. Windows on the ground and first floors are 12-pane sashes; those on the second floor are squat six-pane sashes. All have louvred shutters, stone sills and stone lintels or cambered brick arches. Moulded cornices run at ground floor and eaves level, and an inverted bell rainwater head is dated 1795.

Interior: cellars and ground floor

The cellars contain column bases and cobbled pavement from the Roman fortress. The ground floor lobby and entrance hall have stone-flagged floors. The lobby contains pedimented doorcases from Micklegate House, numbers 88 and 90 Micklegate. The entrance hall has stencilled walls and a raised fireplace in a chamfered four-centred arch. The back staircase, rising from ground floor to attic, has a close string, slender turned balusters, square newels and flat moulded handrail.

The former kitchen retains its original fireplace with chamfer-stopped surround and four-centred arch, and two walls are lined with Delft tiles. The West Sitting-room is lined with raised and fielded panelling in two heights. Its chimneypiece has Ionic columns and a scroll-pedimented overmantel with carved panel depicting Leda and the Swan. The 17th-century coffered ceiling has moulded cornice returned along ceiling beams.

The Dining-room has eared doorcases with doors of six raised and fielded panels in carved borders, and shutters similarly enriched. Carved skirting and dado rail are present, and the walls above the dado are panelled in moulded plaster. The fireplace has a Carron grate, panelled Ionic pilasters, and a swan-necked overmantel incorporating a landscape painting. The plaster ceiling incorporates 17th-century cross beams.

The Great Hall has a stone-flagged floor. A close string staircase with pierced splat balusters and square newels with urn finials, decorated with painted and composition ornament, leads to a closed first floor gallery carried on a screen of Doric columns. The restored fireplace has a hollow chamfered surround with shallow four-centred head beneath a flat lintel. One wall retains fragments of 17th-century carved stone frieze.

The Drawing-room is fully lined with bolection-moulded panelling. Two carved doorcases have pulvinated bayleaf friezes and enriched cornice overdoors. Shutters are of raised and fielded panelling. The enriched chimneypiece has an eared fasciated fire surround with cornice shelf, and a lobed overmantel containing a painting of an 'Unknown Lady'. An enriched dentil cornice runs beneath the 17th-century coffered ceiling with corniced beams.

The Court Room is lined in reused panelling in two heights. The chimneypiece is flanked by two tiers of sunk-panel pilasters beneath a pulvinated frieze and moulded and dentilled cornice. The fireplace is chamfered in an elliptical arched opening, and a painted 'Lakeland Scene' occupies the overmantel. A deep moulded cornice runs beneath the ceiling of moulded cased beams supported on scrolled consoles.

The Staircase hall contains a quarter-turn staircase to the first floor with open string, slender turned balusters and swept handrails wreathed at the foot on swirl-fluted newels. The underside of the stair treads and the hall and staircase dado are fitted with fielded panelling. An Ionic Venetian window lights the space, and a dentilled and modillioned plaster cornice enriches the ceiling.

Interior: first floor

The first floor landing features a Venetian window framed in pilasters with acanthus capitals and fluted Composite pilasters. A panelled dado runs beneath a moulded rail, and an enriched moulded modillion cornice decorates the ceiling with moulded cross beams.

The Queen's Room has doors of six fielded panels in carved borders set in enriched doorcases with rococo frieze and console cornice. The painted stone fireplace has an eared fasciated surround with deep frieze of rinceaux and acanthus console cornice shelf. An enriched modillioned ceiling cornice completes the room.

Princess Victoria's Room has reused panelling in two heights and two eared and pedimented doorcases with enriched pulvinated friezes and dentilled cornices. The eared fireplace has a carved cornice shelf and an overmantel painting of a 'Girl with tambourine' in an enriched pedimented surround. The compartmented ceiling has moulded cased beams and cornice.

The Tapestry Room is fitted with 17th-century wainscotting and some arcaded frieze. Panelled doors hang on cockshead hinges. The fireplace has a continuous chamfered surround with shallow four-centred head. Plaster cornice, ceiling and cased moulded beams are present.

The King's Room has stencilled walls, a chamfered fireplace with shallow three-centred arch, and moulded cornice and ceiling beam.

The South Dressing-room is fitted with fielded panelling in two heights and has a fireplace carved with Rococo ornament.

The private flat containing the remaining first floor accommodation was in separate occupation and not accessible at the time of listing. The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England recorded in one room a fireplace with mantelshelf on enriched consoles and a shell in the centre of the frieze, and in a room at the rear, an original chamfered brick fireplace with three-centred arch.

Subsidiary features

The front garden wall is approximately two metres high with a cogged brick course beneath sloped coping. Towards the right end is a royal cipher letter-box. Gate piers approximately 2.5 metres high are cruciform on plan and have moulded stone cornices and ball finials. The gate and side screens incorporate panels of scrolls, beneath an overthrow incorporating a gas lamp bracket.

Historical note

In 1782, the astronomer and mathematician John Goodricke (1764-1786) made observations from the house which "laid the foundations of modern measurement of the universe".