Description

YORK

SE6051NW CLIFFORD STREET
1112-1/28/174 (West side)
28/02/86 Nos.2-10 (Even)
Clifford Chambers (No.4)
(Formerly Listed as:
CLIFFORD STREET
No.8
SS Empire)

GV II

Range of shops and offices, and including entrance and foyer
to former music hall, now Grand Opera House (qv). c1900;
shopfront to No.10 altered c1920. No.8, former music hall
entrance and foyer, remodelled 1989.
MATERIALS: orange-red brick in English garden wall bond with
shopfronts of sandstone ashlar; brick pilasters, banded with
ashlar on ground floor; ground floor and eaves cornices of
moulded sandstone with terracotta corbel table to eaves; brick
parapet with moulded stone coping; other dressings of
sandstone ashlar and terracotta; slate roof.
EXTERIOR: 3-storey front of 5 unequal bays, with curved corner
bays at each end. Front articulated by giant pilasters
carrying eaves cornice over moulded corbel table, surmounted
by pierced parapet breaking forward over pilasters as panelled
pedestals. Moulded ground floor cornice; pilasters broken at
ground floor level by gabled capitals, containing relief
carved floral and foliate motifs.
Entrance to Clifford Chambers (No.4) approached by steps
within round arch on short side shafts with foliate capitals.
Arch has ballflower mouldings in sunk roundels to archivolt,
moulded foliage trails to soffit and hood of stylised beakhead
and pellet mouldings. Above arch, frieze panel contains the
name 'Clifford Chambers' carved in low relief. Arch closed by
wrought-iron double gates in front of panelled door in glazed
and panelled screen.
Entrance to No.8 is segment-arched and contains arched
doorcase on squat shafts, detailed as for No.4. Recessed
paired double doors, beneath small-pane overlight, are half
glazed and panelled, with renewed glazing and curvilinear
glazing bars.
Shopfronts framed in moulded shouldered arches on squat
shafts, raised on high pedestals, with moulded bases, annulets
and carved capitals. Arch spandrels, beneath plain fascia,
contain sunk roundels relief with floral or foliar motifs
carved in relief. Plate glass shop windows with moulded stone
sills, contained in fluted colonnettes with leaf and Ionic
capitals. Original glazed and panelled shop doors in
shouldered arched openings survive in corner entrance bay to
No.2, and to No.6; door and windows to No.10 altered. First
floor windows are round-headed 1-pane sashes, either single,

paired or tripled, with stone sills on moulded brackets; set
back in gauged brick arches on short shafts like those on
ground floor, beneath continuous hoodmould. Flat-headed sashes
on second floor, with moulded lintels and sills on moulded
brackets.
Right and left returns to King Street and Cumberland Streets
repeat detail of main front.
INTERIOR: staircase to Clifford Chambers is open string, has
turned bobbin balusters, two to a tread, with broad moulded
handrail and turned grooved newels with carved ball finials.
Nos 2-6 and No.10 are new additions to the list.

Listing NGR: SE6034051616

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26550410

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)