If we have the courage to walk along Coffee Yard, half way along we would find a small square, flanked on two sides by this building, now known as Barley Hall. It is a recreation of a medieval hall that once stood on this site, and which has a long and complicated, but intriguing, history.
In the 14th century Nostell Priory in West Yorkshire, like many other religious houses, had strong links with York Minster. The Priors were expected to attend ceremonies and business meetings in the city, so it made sense for them to have somewhere to stay. Thomas de Dereford, Prior from 1337 to 1372, arranged for a hostel to be built in York in 1360. This is the building now known as Barley Hall. The Priory owned the building until Henry VIII's Dissolution in 1540.
During the 15th century the Priory fell on hard times and the hostel was leased out to private tenants. The most distinguished of these was Master William Snawsel, a Mayor of York, who lived in the house for at least 20 years from the mid 1460s to the late 1480s. This is the period that the York Archeaological Trust is seeking to reproduce in Barley Hall.
In 1540, along with all monastic property, the building was confiscated by the crown. By the seventeenth century it was almost certainly divided up into several smaller dwellings with the result that the "screens passage" - an internal corridor - came to be used as a public short-cut through from Stonegate to Swinegate. It remains a public right-of-way through the heart of Master Snawsell's house! By Victorian times, the house was 'a warren of tradesmen's workshops' and its last use before being sold for redevelopment in 1984 was as a plumber's workshop and showroom.
York Archaeological Trust bought the site in 1987. The decision on what to do with the building proved controversial. Its original wooden timbers had degraded significantly. Only 30% were still usable and the site had been extensively altered since the medieval period. The Trust decided to reconstruct the building as it might have appeared in 1483, with the intention of converting it into a museum.
The post-medieval fabric of the building was largely destroyed and a new timber frame was built off-site and then moved into York over a ten-day period, a challenging operation due to the physical constraints of the immediate neighbourhood. Replica furniture and fittings were created for the property, based on an inventory made in 1478.
Supporters of the scheme, including English Heritage, viewed this as an attempt to produce an innovative way of presenting the past. Critics describe the work as producing a replica, rather than a restored building, and condemned the destruction of the later periods of the hall. Personally I like the result.
Lovely shot of this piece of architecture and amazing history! By any chance were you a history teacher in a previous life? Your descriptions are awesome.
Thanks for the detail. It's difficult, isn't it, to judge what is best for locations like this. Personally, I feel we are all enriched by tangible demonstrations of our history.
I did train as a teacher, although I was never employed in a school. My subject was geography. It is only as I've got older that I have come to appreciate the value and interest of history.
Ian
May 16th, 2021
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Thank you all for your lovely comments and favs, they are very much appreciated.
I think the recreations of past locations are a valuable way of helping people understand the past, and this example works well.
Ian
I did train as a teacher, although I was never employed in a school. My subject was geography. It is only as I've got older that I have come to appreciate the value and interest of history.
Ian