ONE of York’s most historic buildings is set to close to the public for the best part of a year.

From Sunday, November 10 York Mansion House in St Helen's Square will close to undergo £1.2 million of maintenance, accessibility, and safety improvement work ahead of a phased reopening next summer on Yorkshire Day (August 1).

The funding, which will come from the council’s capitol budget, will assess many areas of restoration across the house including fixing the building management system (BMS) which is a network of sensors and controls a building's heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, and other systems.

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Hannah Bellerby, the project architect from Buttress Architects who are leading the project, said: “We’re taking any measures we can to ensure environmental protections, but it is hard with historic buildings. We’re trying to find balance between history and eco measures and there’s more capacity on some 60/70-year-old windows than 200 year ones.”

They plan to investigate specific issues – such as rippling in the plaster work, which could be structural or more likely ‘a bad 1970s repair job’ – and will be maintaining a decorative cycle of around 7-10 years.

Lord Mayor of York, Councillor Margaret Wells, said: “Investing in this beautiful historic building ensures it will continue to serve the city and its residents.

“It’s temporary closure will allow other historic venues to take part in the civic life of the city, such as holding citizenship ceremonies in the elegant Register Office on Bootham, and using Medieval Barley Hall to host the Sheriff’s Ridings.”

One of the rooms undergoing focused conservation work is the dining room, which will see work to analyse the build up of wallpaper in the room – tracking the history of the décor in the room in order to find the original paint work, repairing fabric, and fixing cracks in the marble fireplace.

Other upgrades include improving the lift for fire safety, improving the accessibility for visitors to the house, recovering the slate roof, and reglazing windows to improve the thermal performance within the building. There will also be works on the maintenance systems after the competition of heat pumps in 2016.

Work to build the house began in 1725 and was completed in 1732 with the last major restoration was done in 2015-17, through funding that was received from National Lottery Heritage Fund. They also close each January for deep cleans and minor repairs.

The house is currently open to the public five days a week, something which came as a part of the agreement to receive Heritage Funding, and is the official seat of  Lord Mayor of York – despite never being created as a home.

During the closure, the contents will be safely stored with a group of students set to work on their removal and conservation. The house’s staff will oversee this, whilst continuing research and outreach.

As reported by The Press earlier this week, planning documents submitted by the City of York Council says the 18th century building needs internal and external fabric repairs and alterations, including a new evacuation lift and other improvements relating to fire safety, accessibility and thermal performance.