chance discovery

 

This project began with a commission to design and supervise the commercial redevelopment of Coffee Yard near York Minster.

Our client already had Conservation Area Consent to clear these abandoned and unlisted workshops from the site but we noticed that one had a small area of old timber work showing on its outer wall and asked if we could make a quick inspection before it was destroyed.

The Coffee Yard Project began when we broke into these rickety structures and found ourselves unexpectedly inside a large unknown medieval building.

From then onwards our redevelopment brief turned into one of urgent restoration.

 

 

A piece of decayed oak, A, saved these wrecks from

demolition. It proved to be part of the Great Chamber

of a 600 year-old monastic hospice