Meeting room, former muniment room and cells on south side of Guildhall

Summary

Meeting room, former muniment room and cells, of early C20 date.

Reasons for Designation

The early-C20 meeting room and former muniment room and cells on the S side of the Guildhall are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest and function: the architecture of the buildings clearly shows their supporting roles to the judicial and administrative functions of the Guildhall by providing a strong room for the secure storage of legal documents and cells for the Court of Assizes held in the Guildhall since C15 and an additional meeting room underlining the long-standing and on-going significance of the site as York’s seat of local Government
* Group value: the two buildings have group value with the closely adjacent medieval Guildhall due to their proximity and sympathetic style in terms of scale, materials, and appearance.

History

The Guildhall was built by the Mayor and Commonality of York and the Master, Brethren and Sisters of the Guild of St Christopher in 1449-1459. In 1808-10 a two-storey block (now known as the Atkinson block) was added on the S side of the medieval chamber range fronting the river to designs by Peter Atkinson the younger.

Between 1852 and 1892 the Ordnance Survey maps show a group of small buildings on the S side of the medieval Guildhall, which may have been the stabling, coach house and boot house which were demolished around 1900. The 1:2500 Ordnance Survey map published in 1909 shows the present buildings abutting the E wall of the Atkinson block. On the W side an L-shaped range was built replacing an earlier muniment room and cell on the E side of the staircase in the Atkinson block. There are no known plans of this, but circumstantial evidence suggest that it contained a replacement muniment room, a strong room for keeping the Council’s legal documents safe, and holding cells for use during the Assizes. At the E end a single-storey meeting room was built, later used as the Liberal Democrat Meeting Room and electoral offices. Both are now used for archive storage.

Details

Meeting room, former muniment room and cells, of early C20 date.

MATERIALS: muniment room and cells: cream brick in Flemish bond and orange brick in English bond; the roof is not visible. Meeting room: magnesium limestone ashlar and orange brick in English bond, the roof is slate.

PLAN: built on the S side of the Guildhall, against the E side of the Atkinson block and the boundary with the property to the S are a single-storey, flat-roofed muniment room and cells with a single-storey meeting room at the E end.

EXTERIOR: the front elevation of these two buildings faces N onto a narrow yard and the S side elevation of the Guildhall. The meeting room to the left is built of magnesium limestone blocks. It is single storey with a slightly projecting central gable with coping and kneelers, and a slate roof with two glazed ridge lights and two small, ridge ventilators. At the left-hand end of the building is a doorway with a panelled door and two large, square-headed windows with three-over-three pane sashes. The central gable section has two square-headed windows with two-over-two pane sashes and a doorway to the right with a panelled door. The right-hand end of the building has two square-headed windows now blocked with brick. The outer, E gable wall is built of magnesium limestone blocks with coping and kneelers; the inner gable wall is partly obscured by the adjoining flat-roofed building, with the apex built of cream brick. The single-storey, flat-roofed building abuts the right-hand side of the meeting room and returns at the right-hand end to abut the E wall of the Atkinson block and S side of the Guildhall. The front elevation is built of cream brick in Flemish bond with concrete coping and two rectangular windows with ashlar block frames. The left-hand window has a grid of iron bars, the right-hand window is blocked and obscured. The return elevation has a narrower window, now blocked (with bars remaining behind the brick blocking) with a doorway to the right with a studded timber door.

The S, rear elevation of the two buildings has a patch of cream bricks at the left-hand end but is otherwise of orange brick with various blocked windows and concrete coping. At the right-hand end the meeting room has a projecting, flat-roofed outshot with a pedestrian gateway to the far right opening into a pathway into the yard in front of the Guildhall. The meeting room has a large eaves stack to the left and a smaller eaves stack to the right, both of cream brick. There is a small, central dormer window.

Pursuant to s.1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that interiors of the meeting room and the muniment and cells building have been altered and are not of special architectural or historic interest.

Sources

Other
Purcell Miller Tritton, York Guildhall, Statement of Significance, January 2012.

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