Redevelopment of Pontefract's historic Counting House continues as new planning application submitted for outside terrace

The latest application for the Counting House at Swales Yard has requested permission 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.

Work began to restore the building early this year.

Guy Lister 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.

Posting on the Counting House Facebook page, Mr Lister said: “Many thanks for continued support from volunteers and donations.

"Last week we managed to progress repair of the timber frame and remove all cement panels on Saturday.

"Weather permitting we will daub and lime render all panels to the front elevation”

"Week commencing November 27 new scaffolding will be erected for the roof replacement works.

"This will reduce the weight of the roof significantly and ensure the building and oak frame is protected for the future.”

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

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.

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