Treasurer's House, York

The Treasurer's House is tucked away in a side street near the Minster in York. Getting a good outside shot is almost impossible without ascending another building. Luckily, a model inside gives visitors an idea of the outside of the house.

The entrance

The street where it is

Model showing the back garden

We started our tour in the West Sitting Room, which has a small closet with a chess board inside!

L by the sitting room fireplace

Games for two!

Two for games!

The Great Hall is the center of the house and looks the part of a central entertaining area.

Fireplace in the Great Hall

Stairs and gallery overlooking the Great Hall

Mysterious pendulum coming through the ceiling!

Also on the ground floor is the Blue Drawing Room and a small Court Room where the most intimate guests were entertained.

Blue Drawing Room

A nice little cabinet

Eagle holding a mirror in the Court Room

Upstairs on the far side of the Great Hall is the Queen's Room, a bedroom where Queen Alexandra (wife of Edward VII) stayed. Princess Victoria's Room (she's their daughter) is also here, along with a dressing room.

Queen's Room

Sphinx table in the dressing room

Writing desk in the dressing room

More of the dressing room

Back downstairs, we crossed the Great Hall and went up the other side of the house, where the Gallery is. The view from the gallery down into the hall is nice. We also discovered the clock with the pendulum hanging through the floor.

Great Hall seen from the Gallery

Clock in the Gallery

On this side of the first floor, the King's Room is found.

King's Room

In addition to royalty staying here, for a long time the National Trust (who owns the property) rented a flat out. It is no longer "to let," as they say in England, and has become part of the tour.

Blue flat

Feeling peckish, we went down to the basement, where the tea room is kept. The kitchen is fully modern, though back on the ground floor visitors can find the original kitchen which has been converted into a shop.

The old stove

The basement of the Treasurer's House is also famous because local workman Harry Martindale saw ghostly Roman soldiers marching through. He was working late one day and saw a line of figures dressed in Roman armor march through a wall. The strange thing was they were only visible from the shins up. Later archeology showed a Roman road did pass through the house and was about four or five inches below the current floor.