York Civic Trust Plaques

Our Lady’s Row

Location of plaque: 60-72 Goodramgate

SOMETIMES familiarity breeds, not contempt exactly, but just indifference.

That is perhaps the case with Our Lady's Row on Goodramgate. Yes, the row of medieval buildings is quaint. If you look at it from the right angle, you realise there's hardly a straight line there - the row has a lovely, wavering outline to it, the legacy of great age.

But how many of us, striding down the street in pursuit of some busy aim, even notice any more?

Perhaps a few more of us just now, because finally the scaffolding that stood on one corner of the row for so long, after it was damaged by a passing vehicle, has now gone. But for the most part we just walk straight on past.

It is worth pausing next time you pass down Goodramgate just to reflect for a moment, however.

This row of houses has stood here since 1316. That's more than 700 years. King Edward II was on the throne when they were built, along the boundary of the churchyard of Holy Trinity. Since then, dynasties have come and gone. The houses were already old when Richard III was proclaimed king. They survived the reign of King Henry VIII; the siege of York during the Civil War; even attempts to demolish them in 1827. Guy Fawkes would recognise them if he walked down the street today; as would St Margaret Clitherow and the railway king, George Hudson.

OK, so much (not all) of York Minster is older, as are some of the city's churches and surviving bits of Roman wall. But Our Lady's Row is different. It isn't a grand public building. It is a row of humble houses, where ordinary people have lived and worked and died for seven centuries. It's the shape and the soul of the real York, not the showpiece York.

Like many surviving medieval houses, Our Lady's Row is 'jettied' - the upper story projects out over the lower floor. There were several benefits to this. It created extra floor space upstairs; the overhang protected the lower walls of the house from the weather; and the structured strengthened the building, by distributing loads more evenly.

The houses were originally simple two-storey cottages, with one room on the ground floor and one above. There have been changes down the centuries: the northern end of the row has been altered and extended, and the introduction of shop windows and the plastering over of exposed timber framing has changed the appearance of the row. But it would still probably be recognisable to one of those first tenants from 1316.

The row is Grade 1 listed now, and quite right too. If the history of York is the history of England, as King George VI once allegedly remarked, then the history of Our Lady's Row is the history of York. Treasure it.

Stephen Lewis

For the stories behind more York Civic Trust plaques, visit www.yorkcivictrust.co.uk