At The Sign Of The Bible

At the Sign of the Bible, York

House and shop on Stonegate, originally dating from the 15th century with significant later additions and alterations. The building comprises a 15th-century front range, an early 17th-century rear wing, and a late 17th-century linking block connecting them. Late 19th-century alterations include a bay window and shopfront, with further minor changes in the 20th century.

The front range and rear wing are timber-framed. The front range is pargeted on its street-facing elevation, with the rear in orange brick laid in stretcher bond. The rear wing is encased in red-brown brick in stretcher bond, partly rendered, with a hipped roof. The linking block is of brick. The building has pantile roofs with brick stacks throughout.

The exterior presents three storeys with a cellar and attics. A gabled bay projects to the street with jettied first and second floors. The second-floor jetty features terminal brackets carved with garlanded heads. Below, a moulded and chamfered frame contains the shopfront, surmounted by a prominent moulded cornice on brackets carved with flower sprays. A central glazed door with decorative leaded overlight is recessed within a trefoiled arch with carved spandrels. Flanking the door are three-light square bay windows with stained glass clerestories that project over cellar openings. The cellars have ornate cast-iron grilles and bands of glazed tiles dated 1874. A painted wooden sign hanging over the door reads "HOLY BIBLE 1682".

The first-floor window is a four-light canted bay with leaded clerestory lights of stained glass. A carved band beneath the sill incorporates the initials CR, the date 1682, a Tudor rose, and a thistle. An openwork wooden balustrade beneath the second-floor windows forms a balcony above. The second floor contains three cross-windows with similar clerestory lights and carved surrounds with moulded sills; mullions and transoms are moulded throughout. An attic window of paired lights with decorative leaded glazing has a moulded sill on brackets carved with ball flowers. In the gable apex, a carved collar with oak leaves, supported on a shaped console, carries a king post in the form of a baluster. The bargeboards are carved with terminal brackets featuring ball mouldings.

The left return has a side passage leading to a front door and a stained glass porch window, with a square bay stained glass window in the rear wing.

Internally, the ground floor contains a shop with a Gothic-style fireplace and overmantel, with visible cased framing and reset 17th-century run-through panelling. A range of fitted cupboards with ornate wrought-iron hinges stands at the head of the cellar stairs. The staircase to the attic has moulded strings, turned balusters, square newels, and a moulded handrail. The middle room is fully lined with fielded panelling, moulded dado rail, and moulded cornice. A plain moulded fireplace surround features a later bracketed shelf and panelled overmantel flanked by alcoves in wide elliptical arches. The square bay window contains stained glass.

On the first floor, the front room has a late 18th-century fireplace enriched with composition mouldings, a fluted frieze, and dentilled cornice shelf, with a later round-headed grate in a marble surround. The second floor front room is lined with square wainscot and carved arcaded panelling, with a fireplace having a bolection-moulded surround. The attic features an altered crown post roof; the front truss remains intact, the middle truss has been altered to incorporate a door, and the rear truss has been removed. Several three-panel doors survive throughout the house.

The building served as a bookshop from 1682, when Francis Hildyard opened "The Sign of the Bible", until 1873, when it was acquired by stained glass artist JW Knowles (1838–1931). From that date it became his residence and workshop, and remains altered by him. Much of the stained glass throughout the building is his work.