Durham House

Details

NORTHALLERTON HIGH STREET SE 3694-3794 (east side) 6/13 No 84 (Durham House) 23.4.52 GV II* House, now shops and offices. c1754 with later alterations. By John Carr of York for Mr D Mitford (York Georgian Society, p 24). Front elevation of ashlar sandstone, sides and rear of brown brick in English garden wall bond with some ashlar dressings, Westmorland slate roof. 3 storeys, 5 bays. High Street elevation: central C20 part-glazed door in architrave, stepped at base, with swept outer architrave; tripartite keystone and pediment on consoles. Flanking C20 plate glass shop windows sit on plinth and below cornice. All first and second floor windows seem to have original glazing, bars and crown glass. First floor: sill band to sash windows with glazing bars in architraves with pulvinated friezes and cornices. Second floor: 6-pane sash windows in architraves. Modillion cornice. Hipped roof. Corniced end stacks. Side and rear elevations have special bricks used for flat arches to openings, which are typical of Carr's work in brick, and ashlar keystones. Rear: sash windows with glazing bars, ashlar keystones to flat arches. Sides have flush ashlar quoins to front ends. Left return: round-arched landing window with thick glazing bars, radial at the top. Right return has pilaster buttresses forming chimney stacks; ground-floor tripartite opening, of door flanked by windows, now 3 blocked windows with cornice supported on consoles. Interior: first floor has a landing which crossed laterally between two staircases, that to left only from ground to first floors and now removed, but leaving top of landing window with shouldered internal architrave, the staircase now destroyed; the lesser staircase at right end survives from first to second floors, of dog-leg plan, with turned balusters having column on small vase. The landing retains very fine doorways, the doors of 6 fielded panels, panelled door reveals, deep architraves, with pulvinated friezes and cornices, the doorcase to the back stairs having a flat frieze with scrolled ends to distinguish it from the others. The landing has a dentil and egg-and-dart ceiling cornice. The saloon, in the three bays to the front left, has a panelled dado with chair rail; ceiling cornice with acanthus and egg- and-dart motifs, the windows have ovolo moulding on the thick glazing bars, fielded- panel shutters, and architraves with acanthus and bead and reel motifs; the door architrave has acanthus motif. The smaller front room to the right has a plainer cornice and no architraves. The name of the house commemorates the link between Northallerton and the Bishoprick of Durham. Northallerton was a Peculiar of Durham, and the Bishop's Palace here was his southernmost residence. However, the lands of the Bishop in Northallerton were sold over a century before this house was built. The Peculiar was abolished in 1837. The front elevation had ground-floor sash windows in architraves with pulvinated friezes and alternating triangular and segmental pediments, and a forecourt had ornamental railings and gates, all removed. The C20 rear flat-roofed extension is not of special interest. C J Davison Ingledew, The History and Annals of Northallerton (1885), pp 171, 198. York Georgian Society, The Works in Architecture of John Carr (1973).

Listing NGR: SE3688994068

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

332807

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
The Works in Architecture of John Carr, (1973), 24
Davison Ingledew, C J, The History and Annals of Northallerton, (1885), 171, 198

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