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© Mr John Turner

IoE Number: 387615
Location: WIBERFORCE HOUSE MUSEUM AND ATTACHED GARDEN WALL, HIGH STREET (south east side)
  KINGSTON UPON HULL, KINGSTON UPON HULL, EAST YORKSHIRE
Photographer: Mr John Turner
Date Photographed: 22 April 2001
Date listed: 13 October 1952
Date of last amendment: 21 January 1994
Grade I

KINGSTON UPON HULL TA1028NW HIGH STREET 680-1/23/178 (South East side) 13/10/52 Wilberforce House Museum and attached garden wall (Formerly Listed as: HIGH STREET (East side) Wilberforce House Museum including forecourt wall) GV I House, now museum, and attached garden wall. Built c1656 on the site of a house of c1590, probably by William Catlyn for the Lister family. Refenestrated and internally remodelled c1760 for the Wilberforce family. Bought by Hull City Corporation 1896, and opened as a museum, 1906. Red brick with moulded brick and ashlar dressings and hipped and gabled pantile roofs. 3 gable and 2 ridge stacks. Moulded ground floor sill band, ground floor cornice, string course, moulded coped parapet, rusticated front and angle pilasters. 2 storeys plus 3-storey tower porch; 9-window range of 12-pane sashes with brick and ashlar ornaments below them. Eighth window is a wooden framed cross casement with leaded glazing. Between the outer pairs of windows, a bossed-out Corinthian pilaster on a bracket. Ground floor has similar fenestration with brick flat arches and keystones. Central tower porch has the upper floors flanked by bossed-out Corinthian pilasters on pedestals, and is topped with a coped parapet. On the first floor, a 12-pane sash to the front and on either side. Above, a similar window. Below, a round-arched moulded brick doorway with keystone, imposts and decorated spandrels. On either side, a round-arched niche under a pediment. At the rear, 2 long wings, single-storey and 2 storeys, 7 windows, flanking a courtyard. INTERIOR has to south a noteworthy cantilevered wooden dogleg stair with ornamented vase and stem balusters and ramped scrolled handrail. Stairwell has an elaborate dentillated cornice and ceiling with vine trail plasterwork framing a modelled eagle, the Wilberforce crest. Landing has a Venetian window with an eagle crest above it with a vine trail festoon. First floor banqueting room, mid C17, has full height panelling with pilasters and wooden chimneypiece with overmantel flanked by clustered columns and with the Lister coat of arms in relief. Adjoining bedroom has framed panelling and overmantel flanked by pilasters. Ground floor has to right a restored C17 style panelled room with reeded frieze and pilasters, with chamfered brick Tudor arched fireplace and strapwork overmantel flanked by pilasters. Room to left has moulded wooden wall panelling and modillion cornice. Resited marble fireplace with central relief panel and eared and shouldered overmantel with floral swags and portrait of Wilberforce, flanked by fluted Ionic pilasters. Moulded doorcases with fielded 6-panel doors. Central rear room has matchboard dado to 2 walls, moulded cornice and span beam. Adjoining room has similar moulded span beam and cornice and late C18 marble fireplace with fluted columns and dentillated cornice. Former saddle room, at rear, has resited eared wall panelling and dentillated cornice. Corniced marble fireplace with eared surround and panelled overmantel with broken scroll pediment. 2 enriched doorcases with swagged panels above, and fielded 6-panel doors. Outside, attached brick garden wall with string course, rusticated panels and moulded brick coping. Approx 20mx10m. Central pair of brick gatepiers with bossed-out pilasters, moulded ashlar cornices and ball finials. Renewed round-arched wrought-iron gates. This building was the birthplace of William Wilberforce, 1759, and was used as a bank between 1784 and 1829. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Yorkshire: York & the East Riding: Harmondsworth: 1972-: 276; Rutherford, I: History of Wilberforce House: Hull).