Oblong 8vo. Manuscript on paper. [28] leaves. Contemporary red half-roan, tooled in gilt and blind, marbled paper boards. Lightly rubbed, marked, and dulled. Hinges exposed, marbled pastedowns, without free-endpapers, several leaves seemingly removed, scattered spotting, occasional marginal loss. Engraved advertisement sheet pasted to FEP: 'Haxby Hall. Revd. John Heslop, Curate of Skelton, receives into his Family, a limited number of Young Gentlemen under fourteen years of Age; for the purpose of Instruction in Classics and Mathematics, combined with the other Branches of a liberal Education. Being treated in every respect, as his own family, the domestic comfort and religious instruction as well as mental improvement of those committed to his care, will form the objects of his constant solicitude and attention. Haxby Hall is a very healthy situation within a pleasant walk of York.

A nineteenth-century manuscript commonplace, in several distinct legible hands, comprised of popular poems, songs, and glees. The presence of an engraved sheet advertising the tuition services of Church of England clergyman John Heslop of Haxby Hall, York, perhaps suggests that this commonplace was compiled by his pupils.

Haxby Hall was constructed as a private residence 1790, and sometime around 1827 extensively remodelled. In the 1830s the building served as a school, firstly Mr Storey's Academy, and later as the Reverend John Heslop's Classical and Mathematical Academy for Sons of Gentlemen of High Respectability. In 1859, the Hall had reverted to being a private residence. The building was demolished in 1963.