3-9, NEW STREET

Terrace of four town houses, now offices, at 3-9 New Street, York. Built in 1746 with a later eighteenth-century extension to No. 9, and early nineteenth and twentieth-century alterations.

The terrace is constructed in orange-red brick laid in Flemish bond with a timber cornice. The right return is faced in red brick in stretcher bond. The roof is M-shaped slate with brick stacks and four flat-topped dormers, three of which have 2-light 6-pane horizontal sliding sashes.

The front elevation comprises three storeys, basement and attics, with 12 windows arranged as three windows to each house. The basement openings have been blocked. Each house has a 4- or 6-panel door with divided overlight set in a panelled doorcase with plain pilasters, moulded imposts, plain friezes and moulded cornices. Only No. 9 retains unaltered 12-pane sashes on the ground floor; the others have 1-pane sashes or top-hung windows. All windows have painted stone sills. All except No. 3 retain panelled shutters. The first and second floor windows are 12-pane sashes with painted stone sills. Ground and first floor windows have flat arches of gauged brick with painted stone keyblocks, and those over doorways are fasciated. 4-course brick bands run to the first and second floors. A moulded eaves cornice on shaped brackets and an inverted bell rainwater head dated 1784 appear at the left of No. 3.

The left return has three storeys with 4-pane sashes with stone sills and keyed flat arches of rubbed brick to each floor. A shaped gable with brick dentilled coping is visible. The right return features one round-headed window and one radial glazed window between the first and second floors, with three windows to the attic. Brick coping masks the roof valley.

Internally, the original staircases survive in each house. Those to Nos. 5 and 7 are lit from above and feature 2 turned balusters with knops per tread, moulded and ramped handrails, and panelled dados on walls. No. 3 has a front ground floor panelled room with doorcase and dentilled cornice. The first floor contains a panelled room with a fireplace with pedimented overmantel at the front, and at the rear, a room with one panelled wall and fireplace with pedimented overmantel and pedimented doorcases. The second floor has original stone fireplaces.

No. 5 has a fully panelled ground-floor room with a nineteenth-century fireplace and original cupboard with rounded back and shaped shelves. The first-floor front room is also panelled, though now partitioned, with blocked fireplaces. No. 7 has a panelled ground-floor front room with fireplace and overmantel topped with a pulvinated frieze, and a round-topped cupboard to the right. The first-floor front room is fully panelled with doorcases and a fireplace with a swan-necked broken pedimented overmantel. The rear room has one panelled wall with fireplace and overmantel with lugged architrave. No. 9 was refitted in the early nineteenth century with contemporary fireplaces to the ground and first floors. The second floor retains original doorcases. The front room contains a reused fireplace with pedimented overmantel, and the back room has an original stone fireplace with trefoil motifs. A staircase window on the second floor contains painted glass probably by William Peckitt and a floral panel probably by Henry Gyles. All houses retain original doors and fireplaces to the attic.

The roof comprises principal rafters with staggered butt purlins. The terrace originally consisted of six houses; the end houses were rebuilt in 1958–59.