This House Has Been Lived In Since 1091 - Epic Discovery By A Fireplace!

Few buildings can claim to be one of the oldest continually occupied houses in the UK, but Greyscourt, in the shadows of York Minster, is certainly one of them. It's also the only building in the city with private access to the medieval city walls. This might just be my favourite building in York, and today I'm fortunate enough to share that passion with you. In fact, the story of course begins in York Minster. On the west side of the nave, we find the list of treasurers. A Norman created role, the first one being Ranulf in 1091. Well, this house that I'm at today was built for Ranulf as the first ever treasurer. The next three treasurers also resided in York, including the great William Fitzherbert, our own patron saint. And through this beautiful oak door, we find the remains of their original house. This masonry dates back to the 11th slash 12th centuries. The fireplace is a later addition, but the round-headed window, of course heavily restored, is in its original medieval position. So why is there a window inside? Well, decorating the opposite wall is a series of six extremely old columns, which still remain from the 12th century edition of a colonnade to connect the two wings of this building. So the wall I'm showing you was actually the outer wall to the building, evident by this contemporary string course of carved patteray. However, this piece is not in situ. As this stretch of the historic wall was the outside of the undercroft, the wall carries on upwards with some more fascinating masonry that I'm going to show you, as well as an incredible discovery I made by the fireplace. The oak stairs from the entrance hall lead to the magnificent long gallery. I also want to show you the other entrance to the gallery, which includes another incredible piece of medieval heritage. This classic Queen Anne-style entrance on the southeast of the building was added around 1700, and it leads towards the Minster, now as a garden where ingredients are grown for the restaurant within Grey's Court. But at the bottom of the garden, overlooking its old home, is an over 600-year-old statue of a seated Saint Peter, which sat in the central niche over the Great East Window until its replacement in 2013. Symbolically now, we're going to go back through the Queen Anne entrance, who was the last Stuart monarch. The very first Stuart English monarch, James I, was actually entertained in this very long gallery, on his journey to Scotland on the 12th of April 1617. A plaque commemorates how he knighted eight local noblemen in this Jacobean room, a neighbouring plaque also states King James II lodged here too, when he was Duke of York in 1679. And for every royal visit, hiding behind this beautiful early 17th century wooden panelling, sat our Norman Treasurer's Wall, as a testament to our lasting heritage. Through this window, a Norman corbel of a beast head is present, and beneath that, an identical piece of stone coursing, but this time it is in situ. But there's more of this Treasurer's Wall to show you at the end of the long gallery, which we shall walk down right now, just like the third royal visit did here. William Duke of Cumberland was received by the Archbishop of York here at 10pm on the 23rd of July 1746, following his success against the Jacobites at Culloden. He was then entertained for dinner through this door in the incredible Stern Room, named after the owner Jax Stern, the uncle of famous Tristram Shandy novelist Lawrence Stern, whose grave I recently visited in Cockswold. But Prince William dined in this room, whilst the marble medallioned face of Augusta, Princess of Wales, watched over him from the fireplace. Rather ironic, as this was his sister-in-law, and also the mother of George III, she was always very suspicious of Prince William and his ambitions. Anyhow, this room is Georgian perfection. This house is blessed with so much architectural diversity, a testament to its longevity. And the back profile shows the Georgian Stern Room on the left, the Jacobean Long Gallery in the centre, and on the right, this marvellous bow-fronted room. A neat example of a Victorian drawing room, now serves as the Bow Room Michelin Guide restaurant. The steps to the gallery from the garden were added at the same time as this room too. But beside these steps, there's another clear architectural period on the wall. This is an 83-foot stretch of 14th-century wall, retaining three external buttresses and two original window slits. Again, this is part of the treasurer's house. I call this part of the treasurer's house because the building was the treasurer's residence from Randolph that I mentioned earlier, up until Henry VIII abolished the office, as the board shows. The property was then given to the brother of Henry's wife, Jane Seymour. But how did its current name, Grey's Court, come around? And how does it link to the mysterious object? Well, looking at the steps leading to the Long Gallery, the current iron railings are a 1938 replacement. Then if we look at the lectern within the nave of the Minster, here we find the old railings from these very steps, which were donated to the Minster, possibly dating back to the early 1700s. Within the centrepiece lies a coat of arms for a certain Grey family. Furthermore, the 300-metre stretch of wall behind Grey's Court, which you can see through the great French windows in the stern room as well, was an actual part of the property until the Victorian idea to make the famous medieval city walls of York a public amenity. And here we see the stunning Siberian husky Nala, who resides full-time at Grey's Court, on watch at the only private access point on the entire city walls. But this stretch of wall was donated to the city corporation in 1878 by a certain Edwin Grey, as mentioned on the plaque above. Edwin Grey was a prominent lawyer at Grey's Solicitors on the opposite side of the Minster, one of the oldest firms in the country, claiming to have worked with one particular client continuously since 1699. The Grey family entered this firm through William Grey, a self-made man from Hull, just like his close friend and one of the greatest Britons of all time, the abolitionist William Wilberforce, who stayed here at Grey's Court many, many times. William Grey himself was a remarkable man, a director of York Dispensary, set up to give free medical services to the poor. And in 1788, he bought what was called the Great House, what we now know as Grey's Court. By the way, everyone here at the hotel was so incredibly helpful for allowing me in to film a really great group of people. But in the entrance room, again, of the Great House, Grey's Court, beneath the mirror, we find an in-situ medieval wall. This extended as the northwest wing of the original treasurer's house from our early wall. But then that was built on in the late 1500s in this Renaissance style. This was also when the colonnade was bricked up, so before, you can imagine where the outer wall had ran at a right angle. Initially, the two buildings were one, with the original treasurer's house as a base. The Great House was Grey's Court, and the Little House, as it was known, next to it. Until a split in 1721, the Little House is now improperly called the Treasurer's House. Even though Grey's Court contains much more of the original building, and the office of treasurer was abolished half a century before the creation of this building. However, this brings us to the lions' surmounted gate piers, and to the later stages of our story, around 1900. Both houses received important renovations. Decrepit stables were torn down, resulting in the creation of this beautiful courtyard. The lions, which had previously actually sat atop the front gates of Treasurer's House, as it's now known, were a good faith gift to Mr Grey for clearing the stables that were here. The driveway and famous garden were also created, and thankfully so, because this alcove is my favourite spot in the city for a summer pint, with this random grotesque stuck in the wall behind you. I also found this old mounting block for horses quite fascinating. An extremely old sundial, for which I could find no further information, is also present in the garden. But it was on the ground around here where my discovery may take us. So, the wonderfully helpful Dan and I, Dan who was showing me around the building, we walked into the library room beside the bow room and towards the fireplace. In passing, I asked if he knew anything about this seemingly unremarkable yet incongruous ball object by the fireplace. He said he wasn't so sure, so we moved on and didn't think anything more of it. I didn't even get any footage of it whilst I was there. It was only in subsequent research that I may have found the fascinating answer. And it takes us back to the garden. Beneath Nala right now is a very, very old road, the Via Decumana of Iberacum Roman Fortress, which was York founded in 71 AD, of which the gates exiting the fortress from this road can still be located through the dip in the wall ramparts on the other side. But where this car park is now, 166 years ago, William Gray was undertaking an excavation. He was grandson of the first William, and he was father of Edwin who donated the walls. By the way, all three of them served as Lord Mayors of York. But William discovered the walls of a Roman store building. This northern part of the fortress was the barracks area. So William found a tile stamped with Laetio 6, or the 6th Legion who did occupy York. And also, according to this book by L.P. Wenham, five ballista balls. This object by the fireplace very much resembles this type of Roman artillery ammunition. Wenham actually did say one of these balls remained in Gray's court at approximately seven inches in diameter. Now, he wrote this over 50 years ago, but the ball is seven inches in diameter. So I'm fairly certain that this could be that ball. If not, it may be a replica, but I couldn't find any answers online or from any of my personal sources, and no one in the building knew. But of course, truth is vital. I cannot claim that this is an original just because there is no evidence to say that it certainly is. It's just a fantastic coincidence, and you can use this to make up your own mind. However, the Gray family lived here until 1962. It was then home to York St. John University for the latter half of the 20th century. And I know that some of my viewers were students here. So if any of you have any further information on this object, then please, please do let me know below. And if you enjoyed this, do drop me a like. Thank you very much.