Planning permission approved for outdoor terrace at Pontefract's historic Counting House and building could be open by summer 2024

Permission has been granted for a new external terrace and balustrade, new ventilation extract and external fencing to storage area, and installation of external seating/planter to western end of the building at the Counting House at Swales Yard.

Work began to restore the building early last year and owner Guy Lister said it could be open by summer.

Addressing readers and Pontefract residents on the Counting House Facebook page around the new year, Mr Lister said: “We wanted to thank you for your moral support, kind donations and all our volunteers who have made a huge difference to progress so far.

“By the end of January, the main roof will be replaced which will allow internal restoration and decoration to commence.

“The plan is to have the building re-open for summer 2024.

“There's still lots to do, so if you are able to help in some way do let us know.”

Drawings submitted as part of the approved application show the glass balustrade would edge an outside terrace at the end of the building.

Guy took over the project from his late father Malcolm.

The Counting House dates to 1609 – four years after Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in the Gunpowder Plot.

Originally a merchant’s ‘counting’ house, the building later subdivided into dwellings and spent nearly 30 years as a pub after Malcolm Lister bought and rescued it in the 1980s.

It closed as a pub in 2012 and has been vacant ever since.

Malcolm, an architect, was renowned for renovating old buildings and turning them into pubs and restaurants, and in the early 1990s the Counting House even won national awards for conservation.

Guy is now seeking tenants for the unique building, and is open to a variety of uses suggested by local people, from a heritage crafts centre to a liquorice museum.

In September a daub made from clay loam, straw, goats’ hair and manure –supplied by Baghill Nursery – which is then turned into “mud pies” was applied to fill the old panels in the building.

Last year a dendrochronology test, similar to how a tree would be aged, was used to determine when the Swales Yard building was completed.