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Bay Horse, York
The Bay Horse is a pub on Blossom Street, immediately west of the city centre of York, in England. The core of the building was constructed in the late-17th century, after the Siege of York, as a small farmhouse. It was first recorded as an inn in 1748, around which time it was raised to three storeys, and extended from an L-plan to a square plan. It is now a three-bay building, built of brick, with a rendered front which has a parapet disguising the tiled roof. The staircase dates from the mid-18th century, and there are some fittings from the Regency period. By 1798, the inn was named the "Bay Horse". This name is believed to refer to the horse Bay Malton, who won a major race nearby, at York Racecourse. Some of the windows were altered in the 19th century. From 1862 until 1874, the pub and its brewhouse were owned by the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. By 1969, the pub was owned by John Smith's Brewery, which restored the ground floor, reusing some of the Victorian fittings.
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80 m
Odeon Cinema, York
The Odeon Cinema is a Grade II listed building immediately west of the city centre of York, in England.
The Odeon Cinemas chain was keen to build a cinema in York, but it could not gain permission to construct a large building within the York city walls. Initial plans were toned down, and the resulting building is almost entirely of brown brick, with none of the tiles which often feature in Harry Weedon's work. Following these changes, permission was granted to build on Blossom Street, just outside the walls.
The building opened as an Odeon Cinema on 1 February 1937. It was designed by Harry Weedon, with the assistance of Robert Bullivant, and with interiors attributed to Lily Deutsch. The construction cost £40,500. On opening, it had 1,484 seats: 934 in the stalls and 550 on the balcony. In 1972, it was converted to have three screens, with the balcony extended forward to form one 800-seat space and the rear of the former stalls split into two smaller screens, each with 111 seats. It was listed in 1981.
The building is in the Art Deco style, and has a low front range, with a three-storey range behind, a tower to the left, and two-storey wings on either side. Part of the front range is occupied by shops. The tower retains an illuminated "Odeon" sign, rendered in Roman capital letters, not the chain's usual style.
Odeon planned to close the cinema in 2003, with a 13,000-name petition leading to a short reprieve. It closed in 2006, but reopened in 2009 as part of the Reel Cinemas chain. In 2017, it was purchased by Everyman Cinemas and renovated to accommodate four screens, each with sofa seating.
The official listing notes that "the architecture ... is well designed and executed, and is a good example of Odeon cinema design" and that original windows survive, along with some original design elements and ancillary rooms. John Brooke Fieldhouse describes it as having "... the overall texture of a building belonging to an ancient civilisation".
115 m
22–26 Blossom Street
22–26 Blossom Street is a historic building immediately west of the city centre of York, in England.
The building was constructed on Blossom Street in 1789. It was built for the wine merchant John Horner, as a pair of houses, with a central passageway leading to a warehouse at the rear. Horner lived in the smaller of the two houses, and leased the larger to another wine merchant. The building was altered in the early 19th century. Later residents included the architects Charles Watson and James Pigott Pritchett, and the shopkeeper Joseph Rowntree and his family. In 1888 it was purchased by the North Eastern Railway (NER), which used the larger house as the residence of the stationmaster at York railway station, and the smaller house for one of its inspectors.
In 1934 the NER's successor sold the property for conversion into the York Railwaymen's Club. The two houses were combined, the dividing walls on the ground floor of the larger house being demolished, along with all the first floor dividing walls. The entire property was grade II listed in 1971. The building was later used as the New York Working Men's Club. This closed in 2019, and the building was converted into seven holiday lets, with a further seven in a newly constructed block at the rear.
The building is constructed of painted brick, with a slate roof. It is three storeys high and five bays wide, and almost all the windows are sashes. There is a timber entablature from bays 1 to 3, supported to the left by a pilaster and to the right by pilasters either side of the entrance. To the left are three cellar entrances, now partly blocked. There is a lead rainwater head and downpipe, a dentilled and modillioned cornice gutter, and two chimneys. Inside, some fittings in a Regency style survive, probably designed by Watson or Pritchett.
123 m
Blossom Street
Blossom Street is a road in York, in England, immediately west of the city centre.
127 m
Bar Convent
The Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre, at Micklegate Bar, York, England, established in 1686, is the oldest surviving Catholic convent in the British Isles. The laws of England at this time prohibited the foundation of Catholic convents and as a result of this, the convent was both established and operated in secret.
While pretending to be widows, the foundation opened the first school for girls in the country in Hammersmith, London, in 1679 and the second here at the Bar Convent.
Today, the Bar Convent is a popular York destination for tourists and offers bed and breakfast accommodation, meeting rooms, a gift shop, café and museum exhibition about the Convent's history.