Look for the striking black and white timber framed building with its upper floors stepping outward, and spot the unique wooden sign above the door shaped like an open book that reads Holy Bible 1682. This beautiful structure at 35 Stonegate holds centuries of eclectic stories.
Just a minute ago we were at the York Medical Society, but here we step back even further. The front section of this building was constructed in the 15th century, though the land was owned back in the 1300s by the Prebend of Bramham, a senior administrative official of the church. See how the first and second floors jut out over the street? That overhanging architectural style is called jettied. It was a clever medieval trick to gain more floor space upstairs without having to pay for a wider ground level plot.
By 1682, a man named Francis Hildyard opened a bookshop right where you are standing, famously known as At the Sign of the Bible. In 1759, a later owner sold the very first two hundred copies of Laurence Sterne's famous novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.
The building eventually fell into the hands of John Ward Knowles in 1872. He was a stained glass maker who gave the facade its ornate, Tudor inspired decorative makeover. Later on, things took a rather curious turn. In 1999, an astrologer bought the shop, eventually teaming up with Uri Geller to open the Museum of Psychic Experience, and even running a haunted house attraction. Today it is a peaceful shop, quietly hiding all those ghosts and stories inside its medieval timber. Take a moment to soak this in, and our next destination awaits just ahead at York Minster.
