York Historic Environment Record

House, c1775 with early and late C19 alterations. Brick in Flemish bond with hipped plain tile roofs.

EXTERIOR: main block symmetrical, of 3 storeys and 3 bays, with 2-storey one-bay wings to left and right. The main block has 2 brick storey bands. Its windows are glazing bar sashes. On the ground floor there are canted bay windows with cornices, on brick bases. The upper windows have painted brick flat arches. The late C19 brick porch has round-headed windows in its side walls, and a cornice and blocking course. It has a re-set C18 doorcase which has fluted Doric pilasters with attached narrow pilaster strips, console brackets, a cornice hood, and a semicircular overlight. The door has 6 raised and fielded panels. The gutter cornice is dentilled and modillioned.

The left-hand (east) wing has a sashed window on the ground floor and a glazing bar sash on the 1st floor. It appears to be an early C19 rebuilding of an earlier annexe. The right-hand wing has glazing bar sashes, the head of the ground-floor one cutting through a brick band. To the right is a narrow late C19 addition under a separate hipped slate roof. Its front wall is blind, but has a recess at ground-floor level. Chimneys with rebuilt stacks to left of main block and placed axially to right of ridge. Other chimneys visible to right of main block, towards left of ridge, and to right of ridge of right-hand wing.

INTERIOR: a central stair hall at the front of the building contains an elliptical geometrical staircase in 3 flights with turned balusters and a mahogany handrail. Also recorded by RCHM as containing a re-set door and doorcase of c1770, and, on the first floor, two fireplaces of a similar date with pilastered surrounds. Lindley Murrey, the Anglo-American lawyer and grammarian, lived in the house for over 39 years until his death in 1826.

(RCHME: City of York: London: 1972-: MONUMENT 52). Listing NGR: SE5875051344

Derived from English Heritage LB download dated: 22/08/2005

Holgate House, No. 163, was built, apparently as a speculation, by Edward Matterson, plumber and glazier, who had acquired the site in 1770. He disposed of the 'new erected messuage . . . with two gardens and stables and outbuildings with the back room called the Garden House' to John Iveson a dealer, who went bankrupt in 1783 and the property was sold to George Dawson, R.N. The latter intended to retire there, but on receiving the command of the frigate Phaeton in 1785 he sailed for the Mediterranean and the house was sold to William Tuke, acting on behalf of his fellow Quaker, the American lawyer and grammarian Lindley Murray, who had been recommended to settle near York for the sake of his health. (YCA, Acomb Court Rolls; Memoirs of . . . Lindley Murray, ed. E. Frank). Murray lived in the house for over 39 years and died there on 16 January 1826. In 1859 the Backhouse family, proprietors of the famous nurseries, moved here from No. 92 Micklegate (83); James Backhouse (1794–1869), founder of the firm, died here. Later occupiers were W. W. Morrell from 1882 and the Pressly family in 1912–22. Finally the property was acquired by the Railway and it is now (1970) British Transport Police Headquarters.

The original house, consisting of the central block, by the 19th century already had single storey additions to E. and W.; there was a portico but no porch (engraving by T. Sutherland after H. Cave). Later in the first half of the 19th century, the E. annexe was replaced by a two-storey wing, of larger bricks but still utilising part of the E. wall of the earlier addition; the W. addition was extended to W., a second storey added, and a small one-storey annexe built against its W. side. In the late 19th century the N. porch was built, the hall paved, and one of the bay windows on the S. front very much enlarged. A modern storey has been added to the W. annexe, and there have been internal changes.

The N. front has an 18th-century door-case reset at the entrance to the later porch and there are bay windows to the ground floor only. On the S. side bay windows are carried up through three storeys on each side of a modern porch and of upper windows of one large light flanked by narrow side lights.

Inside, original fittings include the staircase, with turned balusters and fluted newel, and on the first floor two fireplaces with pilastered surrounds. An 18th-century doorway is reused in a later partition. Some renovation was carried out in the early 19th century and most of the other fittings on the first floor belong to this period.

An original Stable, W. of the house, is of two storeys under a pantiled roof and has bull's-eye windows in the S. front. A Summer House in the Classical style, presumably the 'Garden Room' of 1774, formerly stood in the garden but has been removed to the Mount School in Dalton Terrace

An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in City of York, Volume 3, South west. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1972. Monument 52

NMR Information:

Collingwood Hotel

Alternative Name: Holgate House

1. 5343 HOLGATE ROAD (south side)
No 163 (Holgate House)
SE 55 SE 1/283
Grade II*
2.
Circa 1775. Brick; 3 storeys; 3 sash windows with plain lintels; brick bands between storeys; 2 canted bay windows to ground storey with renewed sashes and C19 porch with reset C18 pilaster
doorcase with cornice hood on consoles, plain semi-circular fanlight and 6-panelled door. South elevation has 2 canted bay windows tiered over 3 storeys and modern porch. Dentil and
modillion eaves cornice; hipped old tile roof. C19, 2 storeyed one window wings at either side. Interior retains original staircase and 2 good fireplaces. Former home of Lindley Murray, the
Grammarian.
(RCHM Vol. III, Monument 52) (1)

Situated at SE 5675 5135. (2)

Sources
1 List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest DOE (HHR) City of York N Yorks June 1983 157
2 Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date) 1:2500, 1962

NMR, NMR data (Unassigned). SYO2214.

RCHME, 1972, RCHME City of York Volume III South-west of the Ouse (Monograph). SYO64.