Summary
Cottage, originating in 1675 with C18, C19 and C20 alterations.
Reasons for Designation
3 Mill Bridge, originating in 1675 with C18, C19 and C20 alterations, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as an early surviving vernacular building in Skipton that demonstrates local construction methods;
* the building retains much historic fabric from each period of the building's history both externally and internally, including the original dated (1675) and initialled doorway, stone chamfered mullioned windows, early timber roof structure, a re-set medieval plank and muntin wall, C17 and C19 fireplaces, and C18 panelled door and wide floorboards;
* it has contextual group value with a number of nearby listed buildings including Mill Bridge, Castle Inn, 4 and 4a Mill Bridge and 6 Mill Bridge.
Historic interest:
* it was built to replace an earlier house destroyed during bombardment of this part of Skipton in the English Civil War (1642-1652).
History
Mill Bridge is one of the oldest streets in Skipton, curving westwards from the north end of High Street. 3 Mill Bridge stands in close proximity to Holy Trinity Church and originally faced south towards Mount Pleasant. During the English Civil War (1642-52) between King and Parliament this area of the town was bombarded with the castle slighted, the church damaged and two houses destroyed on Mill Bridge belonging to Christopher Mitchell, carpenter, and Thomas Preston, town clerk. On 4 March 1652 Lady Anne Clifford granted to Christopher Mitchell, carpenter, all the plot or parcel of land eight yards (7.31 metres) in front with a garden, adjoining Anne Stirke's house, near the bridge by Skipton Mills to build a tenantable house to replace his former house. This building, with a datestone bearing the date 1675 and initials MEG, was built in gritstone on a steeply-sloping cut, re-using timbers from an earlier building. It had a through-passage plan with a fine basket-arch south entrance door and elaborate four-pane mullion south window and may have formed the western end of a longer single-storey range. A fine chamfered basket-arch fireplace and a plank and muntin cross-wall remain (both it is suggested re-positioned). Further alterations took place in the C18, with the addition of a first storey and the insertion of windows. A tie-beam infilled with close studding was re-set and the plank and muntin cross-wall potentially relocated from the ground floor to create two upper rooms.
The building is first shown on Crow's map of 1757 (plot 753) and by 1773 the Leeds Liverpool Canal was built extending to Mill Bridge with The Earl of Thanet extending the canal north from Mill Bridge. It is suggested from the late C18 this building became a blacksmith's residence. The building is clearly shown on John Wood's 1832 map with access around to the entrance in the south elevation, and a building abutting its north-west corner. It is first specifically labelled as a smithy in the 1852 Town Plan (surveyed 1850) with a garden to the west, a new building abutting the north elevation and a footpath to a new north front door. The building was occupied from at least the 1840s by the Simpson and then Whitham families, both master blacksmiths with apprentices, before passing to landowner and blacksmith Ambrose Whitehead with the cottage let to tenants. The 1891 Town Plan (surveyed 1890) shows the building as a dwelling with the smithy to the west, with extensions built to the south over the former access passage and an ancillary outbuilding to the west. It remained in use as residence for a blacksmith’s apprentice until August 1897 when Ambrose Whitehead sold the plot of land with cottage, blacksmith’s and wheelwright's shop and other buildings.
The Ordnance Survey map revised in 1907, published in 1909, shows that the abutting residence to the north had been demolished and the chimney stack incorporated as a lateral chimney stack to 3 Mill Bridge. A window was inserted to the right of the lateral chimney stack in the later C20 and it was converted to a shop. From the 1960s onwards it has predominantly been an art gallery with minimal alterations across the C20 and C21.
Details
Cottage, originating in 1675 with C18, C19 and C20 alterations.
MATERIALS: rendered and painted gritstone quoins and uncoursed rubble, stone-flag roof coverings.
PLAN: approximately square.
EXTERIOR: the building, with a tiered garden, is situated on a steeply-sloping site on the east side of the canal. It is of two storeys with a mass wall construction under a pitched stone-flag roof with two chimneystacks (one in-set chimney to the east gable with a C19 brick stack and a lateral rendered chimneystack to the south elevation); a further internal west gable end chimney is now truncated and roofed over.
The three-bay elevation to Mill Bridge (north) now forms the front entrance, with a lateral C19 chimneystack in the central bay (formerly shared with an adjacent building now demolished). To the left is a C19 doorway with early-C20 half-glazed door of six panes with bulls-eye glass. To the right of the chimney is an early-C20 aperture, now a window, with a rough timber lintel and stone tiled sill. On the first floor, above the door is a window with a tooled stone lintel and sill which contains a C19 one-over-one pane horned sash window. The right (west) gable elevation is of three storeys facing the canal which steps back in stages as the wall rises and quoins to the south-west corner. The basement is of coursed stone and rubblestone with the ground-floor wall set back with thick rendering (formerly with ashlar detailing) between two ground-floor windows. The large left window has a C19 stone window surround with a three-over-three pane un-horned sash window. To the right is a small window with a stone lintel and one-over-one pane fixed window. The first floor has a tall window with a deeply inset two-over-two pane sash window to the right of a small window with deeply inset one-over-one fixed pane window. The left (east) gable elevation adjoins 1a Mill Bridge (which has a lower pitched roof) with a red brick chimney at the gable apex.
The rear (south) elevation was originally the front elevation. On the right-hand side of the ground floor is a C17 finely dressed chamfered basket-arch doorway with square stops to the jambs. The substantial door head retains a datestone with three recessed plaques bearing the words: '16' 'MEG' '75'. It contains an unusual half-glazed door with various blacksmithed fittings, including a nine-paned horizontally pivoting window, door latches and substantial straight and L-shaped hinges. To the left of the doorway is a chamfered window opening with a finely chamfered and recessed two-light stone mullion window with moulded paned windows and two external iron bars. The window originally extended further west but no external trace is now visible. On the first floor, from left to right, are three windows: a squat window with rubble stone sill and a Yorkshire sliding sash, an off-set central window with a 24-paned wooden window and a narrow one-over-four pane fixed window to the right.
INTERIOR: the south entrance door enters into a large stone-flagged ground floor room with two cross beams aligned north to south, both of which run into the wall above the northern fireplace. The finely stop chamfered west beam is bedded into the partially blocked south mullion window, suggesting it was inserted in the 1700s with the introduction of the first floor. The east beam is more irregular, with roughly hewn chamfers and reinforced by C19 timbers attached to each side by heavy iron bolts. The underdrawn lath and plaster ceiling (with some C21 patch repairs) conceals the joists above, except for later reinforcing beams inserted above the cross beams which have four square cut joists (of variable widths) jointed into them. The stone mullioned south window, to the left of the C17 doorway, has a window seat with a splayed left side and straight right jamb. A painted stone post is inserted into the right jamb to support the embedded west beam above. Positioned in line with it and below the cross beam, is a C20 stud wall with a re-sited C18 moulded five-panelled door in a C20 architrave to a kitchenette in the south-west corner. The return stud wall (north) has C20 panelling re-using C18 moulded studs with a small bracketed C20 shelf above. Within the kitchenette is a blocked south window with a chamfered surround and a recessed stone window, similar to the adjacent C17 mullioned window but without a mullion, remodelled into a niche with C18 or C19 shelving. The west wall has a splayed walk-in window with a small box niche in the left-hand splay and a large splayed C19 window, to the right of a potential blocked fireplace. The north wall has a C19 fireplace with a monolithic lintel and exposed rubble jambs with an inbuilt stone platform. To its left is a deep window with a suspended window sill and breeze-block infill below (indicating a former doorway which led into the abutting building to the north until the C20). The east wall has a blocked access door to the left, with three stone flagged steps rising up to the neighbouring building. Its lintel cuts through the ceiling and floor of the room above to bridge the height difference between the buildings. To the right of the door is a projecting boxed feature concealing a potential fireplace.
The first floor is accessed by a central C20 stair. The east room contains the stair with a narrow stepped landing to both rooms, which have wide C18 floorboards aligned north to south and C19 skirting; some of the floorboards in the east room are concealed by a C20 raised platform. The south wall has two C18 windows; the narrow left window has a dressed square cut stone lintel and stone sill with a curved splay to the right jamb, whilst the right window has a stone sill and an S-shaped timber lintel. To the right is a half-splayed C19 window with a rough timber lintel and planed wooden sill. An eastern fireplace is now concealed. The west room is entered through the plank and muntin cross-wall which rests on a beam set on the ground-floor cross beam and below the upper-floor chamfered tie beam. Struts and plaster panelling (exposed to the east and plastered to the west) divide the space above, between the tie-beam and purlins. The room contains a C17 fireplace with a chamfered lintel and basket arch opening (with the flue in the thickness of the high gabled wall). To either side of the fireplace are windows. The small left window has a roughly hewn wooden window lintel and stone sill and to the right is a substantial C19 window with a wooden lintel and sill. The south wall has a Yorkshire sliding sash window with a dropped wooden sill to form a window seat and an irregular wooden lintel. The roof structure comprises a roughly hewn and chamfered north-south aligned tie-beam supporting a chamfered principal rafter roof with trenched pairs of through purlins. Further roof detailing is concealed behind C18 plasterwork. The tie beam is bedded into the masonry walls, but supported by a rubble corbel to the north. The purlins are supported on wooden wedges and the upper north purlin in the east room is trenched into a substantial wooden block where it abuts to the east wall. There is at present no evidence for a cellar or basement despite the height of external basement.
