York Historic Environment Record

House, now part of school. 1753. By John Carr for Mrs Mary Thompson. Brick in Flemish bond with painted stone dressings and hipped slate roof.

EXTERIOR: 3 storeys above cellars and 4 bays. The ground and first floor windows have sill bands, each with a second band below, and lengths of cornice over rubbed brick flat arches. The windows are glazing bar sashes. The ground-floor windows have external shutters, each with 3 raised and fielded panels. The door, in the left-hand bay, has 8 raised and fielded panels, a plain rectangular overlight, an architrave, and a cornice on console brackets. Towards the left-hand side of the deep timber gutter cornice there is a lead rainwater downpipe and a hopper with a monogram of initials. Axial chimney near centre of roof.

NTERIOR: not inspected. RCHM records good quality original fittings including staircase with turned balusters and enriched plaster ceiling; dining room with panelling, doorcases and fireplace; saloon on first floor with fireplace and pedimented overmantel.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the basement area is enclosed by plain railings on low stone copings.

(An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of York: RCHME: Outside the City Walls East of the Ouse: HMSO London: 1975-: 58). Listing NGR: SE5998452381

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

House, No. 47, was built in 1753 by John Carr for Mrs. Mary Thompson, widow of Edward Thompson, M.P., of Oswaldkirk. Mrs. Thompson died in 1784 and the house was subsequently owned by Leonard Pickard (1798) and the Rev. Pickard (1855). (YCA, E93, 288; Rate Books of St. Michael-le-Belfrey in YML; Deeds; APS, Dictionary of Architecture, ii, 36.) It is now owned by Bootham School.

The house is of three storeys with attics and basement, and has a front of four bays. The most notable features of the elevation are the double bands to the two lower storeys and the lengths of stone cornice over the window arches, unsupported by an entablature or brackets; the window cornices of the ground floor are aligned with the cornice over the architrave to the lofty entrance doorway, which has supporting brackets to each side. At the eaves is a heavy timber cornice carrying a concealed gutter. A rainwater head has a monogram of initials probably of Mary Thompson. The eaves cornice is continued round to the back where there is a large round-headed window to the staircase and a projecting three-sided brick bay with sash windows, originally of two storeys but heightened to three storeys in the 19th century.

Internally the house is well fitted and has been little altered. The principal rooms have moulded ceiling cornices and enriched architraves to door and window openings. On the ground floor the former dining-room has the walls panelled above a dado rail; over the door is an entablature with decorated frieze and over the enriched fireplace surround is an eared overmantel with carved pendants at the sides. The main staircase rises only to the first floor and has turned balusters alternately plain, fluted, and twisted, and newels in the form of fluted columns. Over the staircase the ceiling is enriched with plaster panels and foliage. On the first floor the Saloon occupies three bays of the front and has an ornate fireplace and overmantel enriched with fruit, flowers and foliage. The secondary staircase rises through the full height of the house; up to the first floor, where it was for servants' use only, it has a close string and square newels, but above the first floor it has an open string, turned newels as well as turned balusters and a more delicate handrail. The second floor was partly refitted in the 19th century. In the attics the queen-post construction of the roof trusses is exposed.

'Houses: Bootham', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in City of York, Volume 4, Outside the City Walls East of the Ouse (London, 1975), pp. 54-63.

NMR Information

Full description
(SE 59985238 - O.S 1/2500, 1962)

1. 5343 BOOTHAM (north-east side) No 47
SE 5952 SE 12/97 14.6.54
Grade II*

2. 1753. Architect, John Carr. Brick; 3-storeys plus attic and basement; 4 sash windows with moulded stone cornices in the lower storeys and the ground storey windows with panelled shutters; sill bands; bands at ground and 1st storey and between these storeys; doorcase with moulded stone architrave with cornice on consoles; heavy moulded eaves cornice; rainwater head with monogram; hipped tile roof. 2-storey, late C18 projecting wing at rear. Plain wrought iron railings over forecourt. Interior; little altered with good staircase, panelling, decorative plasterwork and fireplace in 1st storey
saloon. (RCHM Vol IV, Monument 42) (1)

Sources

1 List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest DOE (HHR) City of York, N Yorks, June 1983, 25

BF060389 47 BOOTHAM, YORK File of material relating to a site or building. This material has not yet been fully catalogued.

NMR, NMR data (Unassigned). SYO2214.

RCHME, 1975, RCHME Volume 4, Outside the City Walls East of the Ouse (Monograph). SYO2424.