Cooke'S Almshouses

BENTLEY WITH ARKSEY HIGH STREET SE 50 NE (west side), Arksey

7/54 Cooke's Almshouses 10.12.59 GV II Almshouses. 1660, gateway rebuilt 1736, C20 alterations. For Sir Bryan Cooke (d.1660). Cement-rendered magnesian limestone (exposed on right return), C19 shaped-tile roof. 12 single-storey dwellings set in U-shaped plan with wing walls to central front gateway enclosing the quadrangle. Roadside front: central gateway has C20 wrought-iron gates in renewed ashlar sandstone surround with projecting keystone, pulvinated frieze and plaque with Latin inscription beneath cartouche in coped gable. Terracotta tiles form copings to attached wing walls which link to gable ends of almshouses each having C20 casement, shaped kneelers and roll-moulded gable copings. 2 rendered stacks to each ridge. Within quadrangle: central round-arched opening to passage through to rear. Nos 2, 5, 8 and 11 retain cemented chamfered mullioned windows; chamfered door lintels, all painted. Exposed within the passage to rear is the original roof structure with tie beam and rafters pegged at apex. C20 additions to rear not of special interest. Translated inscription of porch plaque (cited in Miller, p228) reads:

"Bryan Cooke, of Wheatley in the county of York, Esq. by his last will and testament, signed the 3rd day of Jan. A.D. 1660, appointed this building to be erected, a sum of money sufficient for that purposes being bequeathed for the use of twelve persons the most distressed by poverty and age in the parish of Arksey; to each of whom he left 5L. annually, in succession for ever".

"Sir George Cooke, Baronet, great grandson of the above named Bryan, rebuilt this porch nearly levelled to the ground by the injuries of time, Oct. 30 A.D. 1736".

E. Miller, The History and Antiquities of Doncaster, 1804.

Listing NGR: SE5787306892