Number 38 And Attached Walls And Railings

Number 38 St Mary's and attached walls and railings, York (also known as Penn House, incorporating No. 68 Bootham)

A mid-nineteenth century villa, built circa 1852 as a boarding house for Bootham School. The building is constructed of cream brick, now grey in colour, with sandstone dressings, a slate roof and brick chimney stacks.

The original plan was L-shaped with a shallow outshot to the west corner. The main entrance on St Mary's opens through a vestibule into a large central entrance and stair hall rising the full height of the building and lit by a rectangular lantern, with main rooms opening off this hall. A later secondary entrance and stair hall were added in the nineteenth century, infilling the narrow space to abut No. 70 Bootham and forming a deep rectangular plan.

The main elevation on St Mary's is three storeys over a basement. It features pedimented outer bays and a slightly recessed centre with an ashlar portico. The ground floor window has a panelled ashlar apron; the first and second floor windows have sill bands, with the pediments linked by a stone gutter. Most windows are hung sashes with glazing bars and gauged brick flat arches. The pedimented outer bays have a single window on each floor; the ground floor window in the left-hand bay is bricked up with poorly matching brickwork, and the first floor window above is a blind sash with glazing bars. Above the portico, the recessed centre contains one main window on the first floor with a smaller inserted sash window to its right, and three windows on the second floor with narrower flanking windows. The portico has a plain entablature with cornice and blocking course, supported by four columns with Ionic capitals; the volutes of the corner capitals are set diagonally. The door has six panels and a plain overlight, with flanking lights set between pilaster responds. Two chimney stacks are visible on each side of the recessed centre, set back from the façade.

The Bootham elevation comprises four bays, with the right-hand bay slightly recessed. Sill bands and stone gutter continue from the main elevation, and ground floor windows have panelled ashlar aprons. Windows are hung sashes with glazing bars and gauged brick flat arches; the second and third windows on the first floor are 2-over-2 pane sashes. The right-hand bay contains a doorcase with three pilasters. The left-hand opening is partly blocked and contains a window, originally a doorway into service rooms. The right-hand opening contains a six-panel door with overlight.

The south-west garden elevation comprises five bays with similar detailing and hung-sash windows. The left-hand bay has a doorway with a rendered porch with a round-arched opening and a projecting extension over the first floor, featuring an oriel window. Adjoining on the ground floor is a projecting, flat-roofed extension with a glazed door and glazing flanking and above.

The interior retains much original nineteenth-century detail. The main staircase has cantilevered stone treads with cantilevered landings, cast iron geometric balusters and a swept wooden handrail. Rooms opening off the central entrance and stair hall have six-panel doors with architraves featuring pulvinated mouldings and diamond-pointed paterae. Windows retain panelled shutters and soffits, and rooms have moulded cornices, some reeded. Several original fire surrounds of timber or marble survive. The second stair hall has an open-well staircase with closed-string timber treads, cast-iron balusters and swept wooden handrail, with moulded architraves to six-panel doors from the later nineteenth-century alterations. The inner side wall of this stair hall has a large round-headed archway or window on the ground floor with windows above, all now blocked, marking the former exterior wall. A large first floor room on the south-west garden side was refitted in the late nineteenth century when the first floor extension was built over the porch. It features panelling to dado level, a wooden arcade dividing the extension to form a separate space, and a timber fire surround with overmantel. This room and others are now subdivided. The basement contains rooms and barrel-vaulted cellars.

Both road frontages have basement areas enclosed by iron railings on low ashlar walls with ashlar piers of square plan and curved tops. The railings have bulb finials. In front of the St Mary's façade are iron gates and standards with mushroom finials.

The house was built circa 1852 and originally called Top House, located at the top of St Mary's with its main elevation facing the road, which was constructed in 1851. It was built for Joseph Rowntree (1801–59), a grocer and prominent Quaker who, with Samuel Tuke, established the Quaker Bootham and Mount schools. His widow, Sarah, continued to live at Top House until her death in 1888. After the marriage of their son Joseph to Julia Eliza Seebohm in 1856, the house was divided into two residences, and the Bootham entrance was added. Julia died in 1863, and in 1867 Joseph married her cousin, Antoinette Seebohm. As the family expanded they moved out of Top House, but returned in 1888 after Joseph bought the house for £2,600 under an option in his mother's will. In 1905 Joseph and his wife moved to Clifton Lodge, Rawcliffe Lane, York, where he lived until his death in 1925. From 1905 to 1920 his son, Benjamin Seebohm, continued to use Top House as an office. In 1920 Joseph donated the house to Bootham School, when it became known as Penn House.