28, 30 AND 32, COPPERGATE

Hall house and tenement shops at 28, 30 and 32 Coppergate, York

This timber-framed building, probably dating to the 15th century, was substantially altered in the early 17th century when the hall was floored and fireplaces inserted. Further modifications followed around 1800, and 19th-century shopfronts were added later, with partial renewal in the 20th century. Numbers 28 and 30 underwent restoration in 1988 and 1994 respectively. The building is now occupied as shops and a building society.

The front elevation presents three bays across three storeys. The materials are timber-framed with plastered and whitewashed front, featuring a timber eaves frieze and cornice on paired modillions. Rear infilling is of replacement brick in stretcher bond, though original plastered panels survive in some interior walls. The front range is roofed in tiles with a brick stack, whilst the hall range uses pantiles.

The left end bay of the front range, probably the original porch bay, is deeply jettied at first-floor level. The two bays to the right are jettied on both first and second floors. One curved porch bracket survives at the left of the porch bay. The ground-floor shopfronts are plain, with moulded pilaster jambs, moulded cornices and panelled risers. On the first floor, windows to numbers 28 and 30 are single-pane sashes, whilst number 32 has a tripartite sash with a 12-pane centre window. Second-floor windows are 2x9-pane horizontal sliding sashes. The 1994 renovation revealed carved first and second-floor bressumers. At the rear, the timber-framing is exposed, and the right return of the hall range shows exposed timber-framing and crown post roof truss.

The interior timber-frame survives virtually intact throughout, including studded partition walls and a blocked two-light window in the second-floor front room of numbers 28 and 30. A first floor was inserted into the hall on chamfer-stopped transverse beams. Ceilings elsewhere are mostly underdrawn. The roof trusses visible are of crown post construction with side and collar purlins.

In numbers 28 and 30, the ground floor features segment-arched openings on fluted pilasters leading to a renewed winder staircase rising around a hemispherical niche. Against the end wall of the hall stands a massive brick fireplace with a cambered timber lintel, its ends shaped into corbels. On the first floor at the head of the stairs, a fragment of painted wall plaster is preserved behind a perspex panel. The right room in the front range has a corner chimneypiece with pilaster jambs enriched with wheatear drops and leaf capitals, a frieze with festoons and paterae, and draped urns at each end. The rear room has a plain fireplace with moulded cornice shelf and a ducks-nest grate with urns and palm fronds to the sidepieces. A length of timber lintel from an earlier fireplace is exposed above, with a second fragment of painted wall plaster nearby. On the second floor of the hall, a chamfered segment-arched fireplace of brick survives. In the front range, an inserted passage with a door of six raised and fielded panels contains two rows of wooden wall pegs.

Number 32's first-floor front room has a late 19th-century fireplace with a plain bracketed shelf fitted with an early 20th-century cooking range. The rear room has a brick fireplace with a chamfered segment-arched lintel and a ducks-nest grate with rinceaux on the sidepieces. On the second floor, the rear room opens to the roof, exposing two crown post trusses.

This range represents an incomplete survival of what appears to be a rare building type, with few other examples known nationally at the time of survey. A more complete example is represented by numbers 41, 43 and 45 Goodramgate, York.