1 Bridge Street and 1 Bridge Street Row East and 2 Eastgate Street

Details

This list entry was subjected to a Minor Enhancement 18 September 2024 to update name, address and details, add Source and reformat the text to current standards

SJ4066SE
595-1/4/55

CHESTER CITY (IM)
BRIDGE STREET
No 1

AND

BRIDGE STREET ROW EAST
No 1

AND

EASTGATE STREET
No 2

(Formerly listed as BRIDGE STREET AND ROW (East side) No.1 Street and No.1 Row ncludes: No.2 Street EASTGATE STREET AND ROW., previously listed as: BRIDGE STREET No.1 Street & No.1 Row), Previously listed as: EASTGATE STREET No.2)

10/01/72

GV
II*

Number 1 Bridge Street, 1 Bridge Street Row East and 2 Eastgate Street was built in 1888 as undercroft and Row shops, possibly with accommodation above. It replaced a timber-framed building that incorporated a C16 cistern and a flight of steps on the south west corner of The Cross. An important corner building, it is thought to have been commissioned by Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, landowner, property developer and former MP for Chester, although in 1889 the land was owned by Chester City Council. The designs were completed by Grosvenor’s principal architect, Thomas Meakin Lockwood, a former pupil of Thomas Mainwaring Penson who was influential in the development of the Vernacular Revival style in Chester in the mid-C19.
Lockwood established his practice in Chester in the early 1860s and his work came to dominate the City’s architectural scene towards the end of the C19. Lockwood was a key exponent of the nationally popular Vernacular Revival style and his work can be seen in several projects in the Chester Rows, including the adjacent property number 4 Eastgate Street and 2 Eastgate Street South, and the building on the opposite corner number 2-8 Bridge Street, 2-8 (part) Bridge Street Row West, 1-3 Watergate Street and 1 Watergate Row South Street, the latter was commissioned by Grosvenor four years later.

These prominent corner buildings were at the centre of an 1888-1902 building boom in Chester which resulted from an upturn in the city’s economy. At the start of the C20 there were two undercroft shops occupied by a watchmaker and a fine-art dealer with a single Row level unit operating as a hosier and glovemakers. Walton’s Jewellers subsequently tenanted the undercroft for 112 years, before it closed in 2021, extending the shop further into number 4 Eastgate Street. In 2023, the Row and undercroft shops remained in separate retail uses. The use of the upper floors, which were previously incorporated into the Row level shop, is not known. The building is timber framed with plaster panels and has a red-brown clay tile roof.

EXTERIOR: the building is of four storeys including an undercroft, Row and attic. It has one bay to Bridge Street, a canted corner with an octagonal tourelle, and one bay to Eastgate Street.

The undercroft has a modern shopfront facing onto each street elevation with seven stone steps up to the Row at the corner under a round timber arch. Painted timber posts rise through the undercroft and Row storeys.

The Row level has shaped and pierced splat balusters between brick end piers to the Row front, a sloped boarded stallboard measuring 1.93m from front to back and a terrazzo Row walkway with mosaic borders. An original shopfront to the Row has double doors at the corner of the Eastgate and Bridge Street Rows, each leaf has a short fielded panel beneath a tall glazed panel with round upper corners and above the doorway is an overlight. The shopfront has reeded vertically-boarded stall-risers, reeded posts and moulded frames to a shop window of two panes to Bridge Street Row and of one pane to Eastgate Row. There is a glazed showcase against each end-pier; a fascia and dentilled cornice above the shop door and windows, and the ceiling has lozenge and circular plaster panels in a reeded timber frame.

The third-storey bressumer has a patterned fascia and three rows of plaster panels. The lowest panels have central decorative features and arched braces, the middle row has round-arched heads and the upper row has ornate quadrant braces. There is a mullioned three-light casement and a single-light window to Bridge Street. The corner turret has a taller four-light canted mullioned and transomed oriel window, and there is a continuous six-light mullioned casement window to Eastgate Street. All third storey and attic windows have leaded glazing with shaped panes. There is a carved cornice with four gargoyles above the corner oriel.

The attic roof is hipped to the corner. There is a dormer gable to Bridge Street, which projects on consoles carried by herms, with three mullioned lights above round-arched panels. The gable is jettied on shaped brackets and has herringbone struts and moulded bargeboards. The corner turret has four strongly pargeted panels beneath a mullioned four-light canted window. Above is a two-stage curved tourelle roof, capped with a decorative wind vane.

Four consoles separated by round-arched pargeted panels carry the jettied blank gable to Eastgate Street. The gable has raised and painted Grosvenor arms in its round-arched central panel, with shaped panels to each side and above, carved bargeboards and a drop finial. There is a shaped buff sandstone chimney at each end of ridge, that to the east is shared with number 4 Eastgate Street and 2 Eastgate Row South.

INTERIOR: the undercroft shop is three steps down from Bridge Street and four steps down from Eastgate Street. It has a moulded cast-iron column and some late-C19 beams and has been extended into number 4 Eastgate Street.

There is an open-well closed-string oak stair from the Row storey to the third storey with square newels with plinths and capitals and a moulded swept rail on two slender barley-sugar balusters per step. The steep softwood stair to the attic has turned newels, with some turned and some reeded balusters. The roof structure is exposed.

Listing NGR: SJ4053566272

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

470041

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Hubbard, E, The Buildings of England: Cheshire, (1971), 166
Brown, A, The Rows of Chester: The Chester Rows Research Project in English Heritage Archaeological Report, (1999), p 156
Thacker, AT, Lewis, CP, Topography 900-1914 in A History of the County of Chester: Volume 5 Part 1 in City of Chester: General History and Topography, (2003), pp 229-238

Other
Kelly's Directory of Cheshire (1902)
Kelly's Directory of Cheshire (1910)

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