Treasurer’s House York, England

The Treasurer’s House in York, sits on the site of the medieval treasurer's house and uses its name but that is about all that remains of the once large, medieval manor, that belonged to the Treasurers of York Minster.  At the time of the Reformation, the office of Treasurer was abolished.  

The earliest part of the Treasurer's House today, dates from Elizabethan times, having been rebuilt in the early 17th Century.  This created the garden front and the double, Dutch Gabled exterior we see today. 

Frank Green purchased the house at the end of the 19th Century and with his architect, Temple Moore, began to clear away all the extensions, outbuildings and partitions that had been added in the 19th Century. The intent was to bring back the 17th Century house.  As the work progressed, the house was returned to its original 17th Century size and shape. They even restored the 17th Century windows, which had been removed and replaced with sash windows.  

The internal decoration is the result of the work of Frank Green. He set to work on the restoration of the exterior and then began to change and alter the interior of the house.  Green was a wealthy Yorkshire collector. He created a series of period rooms as a setting for his fine collections of antique furniture, and would specify exactly where each piece should be placed in the room.  

Over the time that Green owned the house, he continued to add to his collections, including decorations and fittings as his ideas developed.  He then began to open the house to the public.  Before he retired to Somerset in 1930, he gave Treasurer’s House with its contents to the National Trust, becoming the first historic house to be acquired by the Trust, complete with its contents. 

I’m slightly out of my time period again but I felt this was important.  If there had been more people like Frank Green who came in and saved these places imagine the history we would have. On the occasion where someone does care enough to preserve these buildings, especially when most people thought them to be unimportant, well I think these special people deserved to be remembered.