8 Shambles, York YO1

Illustration by Andrew Cadey

A medieval timber-framed house (now a shop and offices), dating from the early fifteenth century - it forms part of a well preserved medieval shopping street of butchers’ shops and houses with many of the buildings dating back to the late fourteenth and fifteenth century (around 1350-1475). The overhanging timber-framed fronts of the buildings are deliberately close-set so as to give shelter to the ‘wattle and daub’ walls below.

Shambles was mentioned in the Doomsday Book of William the Conqueror in 1086. It was once known as ‘The Great Flesh Shambles’, probably from the Anglo-Saxon Fleshammels (literally 'flesh-shelves'), the word for the shelves that butchers used to display their meat - a prominent feature of the open shop-fronts.

Limited first edition print run of 75