St Olaves House

St Olaves House, York

House, now divided into house and flat. The building has late 17th-century origins with early 17th-century features. An early 19th-century extension incorporates a late 18th-century outbuilding. The front was refaced around 1900, and further alterations were made in the 20th century.

The front is painted brick in Flemish bond, while the rear and right return are orange-brown brick in stretcher bond. The extension is orange-grey brick in English garden-wall bond. The front roof is slate; other roofs are pantile with brick stacks. Two gabled dormer windows have scalloped bargeboards and round-headed sashes set in round-arched pilastered architraves.

The exterior presents two storeys and attic with a three-window front. A shallow porch with modillioned cornice has a keyed segment-arched opening on chamfered pilasters with moulded imposts. The door comprises six fielded and incised panels within a glazed and panelled screen. To the left of the door is a two-storey canted bay window with moulded cornice; its windows are single-pane sashes with stone sills. A moulded band of roses decorates the ground floor windows. Other windows are single-pane sashes with shaped lintels and painted sills; those on the first floor sit beneath relief-moulded semicircular panels. The timber eaves cornice is inset with moulded ceramic tiles of rosettes with leaves.

The rear comprises a two-storey, two-window central range with a one-storey lean-to extension in front, flanked by a left wing of two storeys with attic and tumbled brick gable, and a right wing of two storeys with a gabled end. The centre range has a glazed and flush-panelled door; on the first floor are two casement windows, one of six panes and one of 2x6 panes. The left wing contains a Yorkshire sash window on the ground floor to the right of a blocked opening with timber lintel. On the first floor is an unequal nine-pane sash window with a one-course segmental brick arch, and a 2x6-pane casement window with timber lintel at attic level. A two-course raised brick band marks the attic level. The right wing has a full-height shallow bow with French doors on the ground floor and four-light transomed windows. The right return shows a gable end with tumbled brick and a small single-pane light over a two-course raised brick band at attic level. Adjacent is a wing with a ground-floor window of 3x1-pane lights beneath a one-course segmental brick arch; on the first floor are a four-pane sash window and a three-course raised brick band.

Interior features include a ground-floor rear hall with a stone-flagged floor, coved cornice, and staircase arch of sunk-panel pilasters with imposts. The front right room retains fragments of an original fireplace with stone lintel and a timber-stud partition wall. The rear room has a moulded dado rail and coved cornice over a fluted frieze, with a painted stone fireplace carved with festoons and paterae, complete with hob grate and moulded and dentilled cornice shelf. The staircase to the first floor has concave-sided stick balusters and a serpentine moulded handrail, wreathed around a turned newel at the foot. The staircase window is round-headed with margin glazing and a hung shutter box of beaded panelling in a round-arched moulded surround.

On the first floor, the landing has a moulded cornice and plaster ceiling rose. Front rooms have six-panel doors. The left room contains a plain stone fireplace with hob grate; the right room has a plastered chimney hood flanked by small windows, one blocked. The attic staircase has a close string, bulbous turned balusters, square newels with attached half balusters, and a flat moulded handrail. In the attics, wall plates are exposed at the rear of the front range, and two-panel plank and batten doors survive. The right wing contains a queen strut roof truss.