Talbot Hotel

TALBOT HOTEL, YORKERSGATE, MALTON

Hotel, comprising four blocks arranged around a small yard. The building dates from the early 18th century, with early 19th-century alterations and the main block remodelled around 1840. Also known as The Cloisters, which was formerly a separate property.

The main block is fronted in ashlar with ashlar quoins and a central doorcase. The lower courses of the left return are rendered and incised to resemble ashlar, with upper courses painted stone. The rear is built in pink and cream mottled brick in English garden-wall bond. The roof is hipped slate with wrought-iron corner scrolls. The earlier parts of the building are constructed of squared sandstone with stone slate roofs and brick stacks.

The entrance front of the main block faces three storeys with six windows. A central double doorway with doors of three grooved panels and a radial fanlight is set in a plain doorcase. A former door at the right end is now blocked by a twelve-pane sash window with a wedge lintel. All remaining windows are twelve-pane sashes with stone sills and flat arches of voussoirs. A moulded eaves cornice tops the front.

The rear of the main block reveals two late 17th or early 18th-century chamfered round-arched cellar windows beneath lean-to service rooms.

The Yorkersgate front comprises a three-storey five-window return of the front range to the right, with a two-storey two-window early 18th-century wing to the left. The three-storey part has a central doorcase with attached square section piers beneath a plain cornice on cavetto-moulded corbels. Double doors of three grooved panels are set in a rusticated flat-arched opening of voussoirs with a keyblock. Ground-floor windows are single-pane sashes over a sillband. The first-floor centre window is a square bay containing a sixteen-pane tripartite sash window beneath a projecting moulded cornice. The second-floor centre window is a flat sixteen-pane tripartite sash. All other windows are twelve-pane sashes with plain lintels. The door cornice continues as a raised first-floor band, and a moulded eaves cornice crowns the elevation. A wrought-iron lamp bracket hangs over the door. The early 18th-century part has pilaster strips at each end. A round-arched doorway contains round-headed double doors of three sunk panels. To the right is a 20th-century replacement window beneath a keyed wedge lintel, blocking a former carriage arch. On the first floor are two twelve-pane sashes with stone sills and keyed flat arches. The rear of the 18th-century wing shows a blocked former carriage arch.

The garden front comprises a three-storey five-bay return of the front range with a full-height canted bay window to the left and a one-window bay to the right. Further right is a two-storey three-bay front belonging to the former Cloisters. In the three-storey part, all windows are twelve-pane sashes except for a four-pane sash on the ground floor to the right of the bay. All have stone sills and wedge lintels. A moulded eaves cornice caps the elevation. The Cloisters has a central pilaster and cornice doorcase with a recessed door of four raised-and-fielded panels and cross-glazed over-light. A tripartite sash stands to the left of the door, with twelve-pane sashes elsewhere, all beneath flat arches of voussoirs.

INTERIOR

The main block contains a fine cantilevered open-string staircase rising the full height of the building around an oval well, beneath a domed lantern. The staircase features hollow-sided stick balusters and a serpentine moulded handrail, wreathed at its foot around a column newel. The stairhall has a moulded dado rail with sections above raised bands of carved rinceaux. Two doorcases with pulvinated friezes and moulded cornice hoods lead to the main reception room. Doorcases in the main reception room are similar but pedimented; four retain original doors of eight raised-and-fielded panels. Both parts of the room are panelled above and below a moulded dado rail: panels in the smaller end are raised and fielded, whilst those in the larger end are sunk. Window recesses are similarly panelled, with shutters and window seats to the smaller end. Both parts have moulded cornices, that in the larger end dentilled. Two marble chimneypieces survive, each with a square moulded surround, pulvinated frieze and moulded cornice shelf. One chimneypiece stands on bulbous consoles; both have panelled overmantles, that at the larger end eared and lobed.

The Cloisters retains a fine early 18th-century cornice in the room to the left of the entrance, together with a mid-19th-century fireplace. At the rear of the room to the right, a round-arched doorcase with panelled pilasters and imposts leads to a small stairhall. A dogleg open-string staircase features turned balusters and a serpentine handrail, wreathed at its foot. The staircase window is round-arched and deeply splayed. The rear range contains a room with a complete cast-iron range beneath a mantleshelf on heavy brackets. A series of groined cellars runs beneath the earlier parts of the building.

HISTORY

The Talbot Hotel, originally known as The New Talbot, was founded around 1740, initially in association with Malton Races, which flourished from 1713 to 1862. In the 19th century, it operated as a coaching inn for The Mail, a service running between York and Scarborough.