12, Minster Yard

No. 12 Minster Yard is an office building dating from around 1840, which incorporates elements from a late 18th-century structure. It was designed by JB Pritchett for the Dean and Chapter. The building features limestone ashlar fronts, with the rear made of squared limestone and orange-brown brick, and a wing constructed of squared limestone. The roofs are covered with pantiles and hipped over the wing.

The architectural style is Gothick. The exterior presents a three-storey gabled front facing Minster Yard, with a two-window return front to the right. It has a high moulded plinth and the entrance is located in the right return. The Minster Yard front includes a three-light window with a square-headed surround on the ground floor, an embattled three-light oriel on the first floor, and paired lancets with a two-centred head on the second floor. The moulded gable coping continues over a plain parapet on the right return.

The right return features a glazed and panelled door with a four-centred head. The windows consist of paired four-centred lights in square-headed surrounds on the ground and second floors, and four-centred lights on the first floor. All openings and mullions are hollow chamfered, and all windows have hoodmoulds that return on the second floor to form an eaves string beneath the plain parapet. The windows are tall hung sashes.

Inside, there is a re-used staircase leading to the second floor, which has an open string, turned balusters, square newels, and a plain handrail. On the ground floor, the front room has a fireplace with sunk-panel jambs decorated with wheatear drops and a dentilled shelf beneath a later shelf. The rear room features an alcove fitted with built-in shelving, partially supported by a colonnade of squat columns. On the first floor, the rear room retains a fireplace with a dentilled shelf.