The Oliver Sheldon House

The Oliver Sheldon House, Nos.17 and 19 Aldwark, York

This substantial town house was built around 1720 incorporating the remains of a late 17th-century house and some earlier structure. It was constructed for William Redman, subdivided around 1750, and underwent conversion and restoration in 1969 by architect Francis Johnson. The building is now divided into flats.

The earliest structure is timber-framed. The front elevation is faced with orange brick laid in Flemish bond on a chamfered stone plinth, with stone doorcases and timber cornice. The rear is constructed in red brick, also in Flemish bond. The roofs are tiled with brick stacks, one set diagonally. The front roof is hipped at the left end with dormers featuring pediments and 2-light casements. The rear roofs comprise three parallel hipped ranges.

The building is two storeys with attics, presenting an eight-window front. No.17 has a heavily rusticated doorcase with a triple-keyed fasciated architrave and moulded pediment; the door comprises six raised and fielded panels with glazed inserts. No.19 has a fasciated architrave with triple keyblock and a similar six-panelled door. The ground-floor windows are 15-pane sashes with fielded panelling shutters, while the first-floor windows are 18-pane sashes. All have flat arches of rubbed and gauged brick. The eaves feature a heavy moulded modillioned cornice, returned at the left end. A rainwater head is embossed with a winged cherub head, initialled WR and dated 1732.

The rear elevation shows two storeys with five windows. A recessed glazed door stands to the right of four 12-pane sash windows with painted sills and elliptical brick arches. The first floor has 18-pane sashes with flat arches. A three-course raised brick band runs across the first floor, with a brick dentil eaves cornice above.

The interior of No.17's ground floor features entrance and staircase halls paved in black marble and yellow stone. The staircase to the first floor has cantilevered treads, slender turned balusters, a heavy turned newel, and a serpentine moulded handrail. The staircase dado is fielded panelling with insets carved with floral drops and panels of foliated scrolls at head and foot. The half landing has an inlaid wooden floor and a round-headed staircase window flanked by fluted Corinthian pilasters.

The first-floor landing displays a richly moulded cornice and an oval centre panel surrounded by Greek key moulding with a rosette centrepiece. Rear ground-floor rooms contain a fireplace with a segmental brick arch. The centre room has a plaster ceiling of geometric panels between beams enriched with strapwork and foliage trails, alongside a reset fireplace with a surround carved with ribbons, palm fronds and wheatear drops. The overmantel panel is enclosed in egg-and-dart mouldings and flanked by laurel wreaths suspended from scallop shells and beribboned garlands.

On the first floor, the left end room features fielded dado panelling, a moulded rail, and a marble fireplace with fluted surround, paterae, and plain shelf. The passage to and the central room are panelled in two heights with bolection moulded and raised and fielded panelling. Four six-panel doors have dentil corniced overdoors. A dentilled ceiling cornice is enriched with egg-and-dart moulding. The windows have panelled reveals and seats, and a plain fireplace with an overmantel panel between sunk-panel pilasters with moulded capitals. The right end room has a six-panel door, bolection moulded and raised and fielded panelling with panelled window reveals, and a plain fireplace with bolection moulded overmantel panel and moulded cornice.

In the attic are two three-panel doors, one mounted on fine cockshead hinges. In the central portion of the rear wall is a blocked window, its head breaking into the length of a timber-frame wall-plate. Other portions of wall-plate remain visible intermittently.

The roof comprises principal rafter trusses tenoned and pegged at the apex.