York College For Girls

York College for Girls

No. 62 Low Petergate, York

A house dating to around 1725, now part of a school, with a late 18th-century portico. The wings were rebuilt and further alterations were made around 1866 and later in the 19th century. It was originally built for John Shaw, Proctor of the Court at York.

The building is constructed of orange brick in two dates: Flemish bond at the front, stretcher bond at the rear. It has a stone plinth, with the porch, doorcase and cornices of painted timber. The roof is tiled, with slate hipped roofs to the wings and brick stacks.

The exterior presents two storeys and an attic. The main range is five bays wide with a projecting centre bay and a single-storey porch in front, flanked by two-storey projecting wings. The porch is pedimented with a Doric order and contains a six-panel door with fluted surrounds and paterae, and a radial fanlight set in a round-arched architrave with moulded imposts. The first and second floor windows of the main range are tall eighteen-pane sashes. The attic has two-light casement windows in pedimented dormers. A moulded first floor band of painted stone runs across the main range and wings, with a Doric eaves entablature to the main range. The left wing has a six-panel door with overlight in a link bay to the main range. Both wings have narrow eight-pane sash windows on both floors of their returns, and paired one-pane windows at the head of the gable walls. All windows have painted stone sills and flat arches of gauged brick. The gable walls feature a semicircular blind arch of brick above the first floor band, and both wings have moulded timber cornices.

The rear elevation is two storeys and attic with a five-bay front between polygonal end bays with pointed octagonal roofs of fishscale slate. The original windows are unequal fifteen-pane sashes with painted stone sills and flat arches of gauged brick. The right end bay has a glazed and panelled door, and both end bays have one-pane sashes. A raised first floor band, moulded string over the second floor windows, and a moulded timber eaves cornice continue across the main front and end bays.

The interior is richly appointed. On the ground floor, the front left room has a marble fireplace with reeded jambs, frieze and corner roundels. The front right room is lined with full-height raised and fielded panelling incorporating a three-panel cupboard door, an enriched dentilled cornice, panelled window reveals, and a marble fireplace with colonnette jambs. The left rear room has a dentilled dado rail and moulded cornice. The right rear room features door and window architraves of flutes and rosettes, a six-panel door in similar surrounds, an enriched dentilled cornice, panelled window reveals, and a marble fireplace with fluted surround and angle rosettes. The entrance hall contains five doorcases with corniced overdoors and six-panel doors. A fluted Corinthian distyle in antis screen with entablature leads to the stairhall. The main staircase has cantilevered treads, panelled beneath, with turned and entwined balusters and a serpentine handrail swept at the foot on a shaped curtail step. The stairwell has parallel dado panelling with an acanthus volute at the foot. On the half-landing is a reset door made up of six 16th-century carved panels.

The first floor landing has a plaster ceiling of two classical figures with a child. A close string open well staircase to the second floor has bobbin balusters, a turned newel and serpentine handrail. The front left room, now incorporating a small centre room, is fitted with two heights of raised and fielded panelling and a moulded cornice. The small room has a blocked corner fireplace, while the larger room has a 19th-century chimneypiece. The front right room has three walls of raised and fielded panelling in two heights and panelled shutters. The rear left room has three walls of raised and fielded panelling in two heights, a moulded cornice and skirting, and panelled window reveals. The rear right room has a fireplace with fluted Corinthian columns, an architrave enriched with vine trails, a shaped shelf, and a basket grate with anthemion side pieces, with a moulded skirting and cornice and panelled window reveals, and six-panel doors.