the Newgate Coffee bar
Coffee Tea Cake Cocktails Lunch
About us
Welcome to the Newgate Coffee Bar the perfect place to relax and unwind after a busy day sight seeing and shopping in the City of York.
Our History
Extensively restored in 1974, it is probably the second oldest dated house in York. The range Nos. 12 to 15 Newgate represents the surviving units of a row of timber-framed houses built in the churchyard of St. Sampson in 1337, facing south-east along Newgate.
​Built in 1337!
Angelo Raine in his Medieval York says that before 1336 the churchyard stood on the north side of the street, and it was about that time that Sir Hugh Botner, chaplain, of York, was granted a licence to build houses on part of the cemetery along the street called Le Newgate. The block ran 130 feet in length and was 20 feet deep. Some idea of the property in its original state may be had from an examination of the houses in Lady Row, Goodramgate, probably the oldest domestic buildings in the city. No. 12 represents one original tenement, of which there were originally ten or twelve, each self-contained with one room upstairs and one down. The upper room would be open to the roof. No. 12 was heightened in the early nineteenth century to create an attic and all the windows are modern. If No. 12 is a typical example, each tenement was entered by a doorway at the north-east end of the front wall and a straight, steep staircase along the internal north-east wall led to the upper room.
​The Shambles
Running along side the Newgate coffee bar is the famous Shambles, arguably the best preserved medieval street in the world. It was mentioned in the Doomsday Book of William the Conqueror in 1086. Many of the buildings on the street today date back to the late fourteenth and fifteenth century (around 1350-1475).The Shambles was a street of butchers shops and houses, many complete with a slaughterhouse at the back of the premises, ensuring a ready supply of fresh meat. The meat was hung up outside the shops and laid out for sale on what are now the shop window-bottoms. It is still possible to see some of the original butchers meat-hooks attached to the shop fronts.