Turret House

Turret House, now part of St Nicholas Hospice, is a house dating from the late 17th and 18th centuries. The front is stuccoed brick with rusticated quoins; the rear is white brick with red brick dressings. The front has a slate roof, while the rear has plain tiles.

The house is three storeys high, with an attic and a cellar, and has a seven-window front. The windows are sash windows, irregularly spaced, without glazing bars, set within moulded architraves with raised flat arches and keystones. A six-panel door is set within a Doric doorcase featuring fluted pilasters, a triglyph frieze, and a pediment. The rear elevation is in white brick with red brick dressings and a heavy wood modillion cornice. Hipped wings project from the centre, with two 12-pane sashes to each on the ground and first storeys, and a segmental-headed dormer window above. On the east side, a ground-floor extension from the early 19th century has been added, featuring a tripartite sash window with 12 panes in the centre and 8 panes to the sides. The centre of the rear elevation has three similar sashes at different levels, one illuminating the staircase. A section of a lower timber-framed building is incorporated into the north side, possibly a remnant of an earlier house on the site.

The interior contains extensive brick-lined cellars, with a section of stone blocks along the front wall. There is a main beam with a large chamfer, and a single old two-light window with square leaded panes and pintle hinges. Some original sash windows with heavy ovolo-moulded glazing bars remain on the ground storey of the rear wings; the floors retain remains of York paving stones. Throughout the house are six-panel doors. A room to the left of the entrance features bolection-moulded panelling and door surrounds, beams with panelled boxing, and a moulded cornice with dentils. One door has a panelled, segmental-arched surround with a keystone. A room to the right of the entrance has full raised fielded panelling, a moulded dado rail, and a fireplace surround with an eared architrave. A notable staircase features moulded and ramped handrails, open bracketed strings, and paired turned balusters. A similar staircase leads to the attic, although some turned balusters have been replaced with plain square ones. At the east end, an upper room is decorated with mock Jacobean panelling.