56, Micklegate

No. 56 Micklegate is a house that now functions as both a residence and a shop. It dates from the mid-18th century and incorporates elements from a 17th-century house, with a late 19th-century and 20th-century shopfront. It was likely built for John Bradley, an apothecary. The front is made of mottled red brick in Flemish bond, featuring a timber eaves band, while the rear is part-rendered. The building has a brick-coped left gable and a pantile roof, with brick stacks located at the left end of the front range and on the rear wing.

The exterior showcases a three-storey, two-window front with a plain shopfront. The 20th-century shop door is recessed between plate glass windows. At the right end, there is a sunk-panelled upstairs door with an overlight, set in a plain pilaster doorcase that has a deep frieze and a dentil cornice hood supported by grooved consoles. The first and second floor windows are 12-pane sashes with flat arches made of gauged brick. A painted stone sill band is present on the first floor, while the second floor windows feature painted stone sills.

Inside, the ground floor shop retains moulded and dentilled cornices. The entrance passage has a stone flagged floor and a round arch on pilasters with moulded imposts. An open string, quarter-turn staircase rises around a well from the ground floor to the attic, featuring slender turned balusters and a ramped-up, moulded handrail. On the first floor, the front room includes a moulded dado rail and skirting, with enriched raised and fielded panelling above the dado rail, and an enriched dentil and modillion cornice. Two doorcases have enriched architraves with pulvinated friezes, dentilled pedimented overdoors, and six-panel doors. The fireplace is set in an enriched moulded surround with a fluted frieze featuring an uncarved centre panel and a dentilled moulded cornice shelf. All mouldings exhibit an egg-and-dart design.