You can now own part of York’s dramatic history if you have half a million to spare.
The site at 79 Fulford Road has gone up for sale. And it includes a row of 180-year-old stone arches that once adorned York Theatre Royal.
They were moved to the site when the theatre was remodelled in 1879.
Despite their history, a developer applied to demolish them in 2017. A year later they were saved, when City of York Council gave the go-ahead for a new development on the site, which incorporates the arches.
The site is now up for sale with Hudson Moody for £500,000. The sale includes the planning permission to create a ground floor café in a new building adorned by the restored arches.
And permission has also been granted for six flats above and three houses in historic coach house buildings at the back of the site.
There is also permission to build a duplex maisonette above the access way between numbers 4 and 6 Howard Street.
The estate agents say this is “a rare opportunity to purchase a development site, minutes away from the York city centre on Fulford Road.
“Planning consent has been granted to create six luxury apartments consisting of 1-2 bedrooms with open plan kitchen, dining, living room, ground floor café together with a one bedroom duplex, accessed via Howard Street.
“In addition, there are five secure off street parking spaces included within the site.”
Historic arches
When St Leonard’s Place was created in about 1834, a new entrance to York Theatre Royal was built and included the arcade of arches by John Harper.
This was replaced in about 1879 by the theatre exterior we see today – and the old eight-arch arcade was put up in Fulford Road
Back then 79 Fulford Road was the coach house to the York Priory directly opposite, built in 1876 by seed merchant Isaac Poad as a wedding present for his daughter
When the alterations to the Theatre Royal were made, some of the redundant stonework went into the Priory garden
In more recent years 79 Fulford Road has been a garage, a doctor’s surgery, and the Pipkins Nursery.