Details
SE 3694-3794 NORTHALLERTON HIGH STREET
(east side)
6/8 Nos 68 and 70 (Porch House)
and front railings
9.12.69 (formerly listed as No 71
(The Porch House))
GV II
Old house at one time divided into 3, now 1 house; front railings. House has
late C16 fabric, much altered in late C17, c1780 and 1844. For the Metcalfe family.
Partly timber-framed. enclosed in brick, and brick roofs of pantiles dated 1781;
C19 cast-iron railings. House: 2 storeys, 1:4 first floor windows. Left range
a cross-wing rebuilt c1780; centre 2 windows are 1½ bays of timber-framed open hall
of c1584, with floor inserted in late C17, altered in late C18; wing to rear right added
in mid C17, altered in C18 and c1844; single-storey porch in centre replaces a 2-
storey timber-framed porch which was dated 1674 and gave the house its name. Left
range of c1780, taller and projecting forward: brick in Flemish bond; to right,
4-panel door below overlight with first arch; 2-storey canted bay window with pebble-
dashed panels, sash windows with small panes; dentil eaves, hipped roof with ridge
stack in centre of left return. Hall; brick in English garden wall bond; on both
floors a 3-light side-sliding sash window, with flat arch to right; stack to right.
Single-storey sandstone ashlar porch; probably of 1844; vertical panelled door,
ogee-shaped lintel; coped gable with apex final; stone slat roof. Right range;
C20 casement windows, smaller on first floor, all with flat arches; modillion eaves;
roof hipped to right; wrought-iron lamp bracket at right corner. Right return;
blocked ground-floor opening;band; first-floor side-sliding sash window; ridge
stack. Railings to front of wrought iron on low ashlar wall the square section
bars having spaer finials flanked by scrolls. Interior: hall has ingle beam, and
late C19 cast iron kitchen range by R P Reay & co, Stockton on Tees; large C17 stop-
chamfered beam to rear post has re-cut inscription; stop-chamfered thin joists;
room to far right has reset timber, probably from porch, with raised characters
'1674 WM AM'. On the first floor, the floorboards are butt-jointed, there are
jowled posts, and 2 low curved tie-beams, one possibly from a smoke hood. Principal
rafter roof trusses with halved apexes and two sets of through purlins. Left wing
has front drawing room with moulded cornice, rear dining room with arched recess
from previous staircase; first floor C18 fireplace. Raer right wing has no floor
in it, the 2-storey space said to have been used as a solicitor's office. The
railings in front of the house, probably of c1844, were necessary to protect the
house when the cattle market wa sheld in the High Street; most houses has them but
have lost them. When the house was being altered in 1844, a beam then exposed was
said to be inscribed 'RM 1584 MM' (Richard ans Margaret Metcalf). In the porch
gable was carved 'WM 1674 AM' (William and Anna Metcalfe (nee Marwood) - probably
the piece of wood now inside. Their daughter Margaret married Daniel Lascelles,
MP for Northallerton 1702. According to local tradition, King Charles I stayed
here twice, in 1640 and again in February 1647. Mrs Anne Metcalfe went to live
in York 1780-84 while the family home was repaired, and when, it seems, the thatched
roof was replaced in pantile, as one tile has been found with the date 1781 and
the maker's name, Watson of Thirsk. Royal Commission on Historical Monuments
(England) has a report (copy in the NMR) which gives details of the fframing,
including a first floor stud wall at the bhack of the hall not now visible.
Rev J L Saywell, The History and Annals of Northallerton (1885),pp 70-75.
Listing NGR: SE3678394221
