rediscovered history

 

Barley Hall today comprises about two thirds of a largely reconstructed monastic complex that was probably first erected between 1360 and 1362 as the York base of Nostell Priory in West Yorkshire. That hospice (a sort of private hotel) consisted of two parallel six-bayed ranges, three storeys high, joined in the middle by a two-storeyed hall or cross range.

About seventy years later the lower range was demolished and replaced by a typical Hall House of the period, either for rent or sale. It has the usual double height hall and dais, and a screens passage leading to a ground floor buttery and pantry with a sleeping chamber above.

We found no trace of a staircase connecting both levels, but the domestic kitchen belonging to this early 15thc. residential adaption of the Prior’s hospice survives in its former South Range, now a part of the adjoining Medical Society Building.

The external west door into the screens passage (now a public right of way) was once covered by a mono-pitched porch. The mortices for the lower rails are preserved in the surrounding framing, but as no other evidence survived we made no attempt to reconstruct it.

A similar, but larger structure (right) was attached to the centre of the North Range giving external access to an impressive first floor chamber (Great Chamber) that was probably the Prior’s accommodation.

Very little of this second external porch had survived, except for its foundations and a better preserved set of mortices giving its midrail and wallplate heights and the pitch of its roof.

We own to the design of this external porch and staircase being largely ours. We needed it as a fire escape so that Barley Hall could be used as a visitor centre. For reasons we don’t quite understand it has become one of the most photographed structures in York.