Herbert House, York

One of the aspects of Britain that many visitors from elsewhere in the world find fascinating is the number of old buildings that can be seen around the country. Nearly every town, city, and village has something to offer in the area of architecture from centuries past. Today’s post takes us to the historic city of York, famous for its minster cathedral among other things, although that’s not what you can see in our photo, of course.

The beautiful black-and-white-fronted Tudor building is Herbert House, named after its early inhabitants, the wealthy Herbert family. The house was built in around 1545, towards the end of the reign of the famous (or should that be infamous?) King Henry VIII. It features the classic half timber of the Tudor style, as well as the lattice-work windows that help to make buildings of this era so recognizable. The frontage of this particular example is bowed and looks like it might collapse at any moment; however, the building was underpinned in the 1980s, so neither it nor the public are in danger.

Fun fact: The Herbert family were highflyers in their day, producing more than one Lord Mayor of York, as well as being wealthy merchants. The most famous of them, Thomas Herbert, was a courtier close to the doomed King Charles I. It was he who kept the king company on his journey to be executed in January 1949.

Thanks to The York Conservation Trust for much of the information in this post.