Wrenaissance High Tea

This vignette is merely a pictorial-archival history of a C20 building of great renown in York, courtesy of Mardi Jacobs, Company Archivist, Bettys & Taylors Group Ltd., Harrogate. The building was formerly the Garnham & Hunt furniture store before the Bettys founder Frederick Belmont bought the property in 1936. The building is of three storeys, and nine bays on both the St Helen’s Square and Davygate elevations, with a further four bays on the Coney Street front. Its elegant brick frontage with stone classical detailing (save for art deco grilles) is reminiscent of Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723), whose architecture was a key source of reference for various building types at this time (not least following the 1923 bicentenary of his death) a style known as “Wrenaissance” (cf. the Grand Hotel). The upper floors are articulated by giant Ionic pilasters, whilst the centre bay creates a frontispiece with a cartouche of the City of York in its tympanum, and a cupola rising above an open pediment. The curved three-bay tripartite bays connecting Davygate with St. Helen’s Square make for a particularly elegant corner treatment.

A social and architectural history remains to be written…