The building in front of the Guildhall on Coney Street is the Mansion House. This was built in the 1730s as a residence for the Lord Mayors of York, and shows the increasing civic pride of the city at that time. It was the first purpose-built mayoral mansion house in the country.
Since the medieval period York’s mayors had lived in their own houses, but were also expected to entertain all the leading citizens to feasts and banquets on a weekly basis at their own expense. The expense meant that many citizens refused or avoided the office.
From the 1730s the Lord Mayor of York lived in the Mansion House for the year, with a staff of servants, cooks, butlers, maids, and gardeners, paid for by the city. In the 1780s one of the mayors wrote a book giving advice to his successors on how to deal with various problems of money, staff, and the people of York.
“Keep the Hall Gates shutt as much as you can, and the back Door also, for beggars often come that way, and are so audacious as to gett into the Kitchen, where they have an oppertunity of taking what they ought not, if the servants are out of the way. There are two or three people I could name, are never out of the House or kitchen, they do not come there for nothing.”
