Summary
Undercroft and town house forming part of the Chester Rows, with a small warehouse to the rear. Now a shop and office. C17 with late-C19 and C20 alterations but may have earlier origins.
Reasons for Designation
Number 10 Bridge Street and Number 8 (part) Bridge Street Row West is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons.
Architectural interest:
* for its well-preserved C17 timber frame, which includes decorative features of that date, but also for evidence of a former medieval open hall in the storey above the Row, with substantial galleries on three sides, which suggests that it is a remodelled earlier building.
* for its functional and associative relationship with the Chester Rows, which comprise various building styles and periods, but retain common features, including a continuous, uninterrupted walkway to the first floor and a stallboard.
Historic interest:
* as an integral part of the Chester Rows on Bridge Street, a medieval system of continuous walkways at first-floor level, which are unique to Chester and which have no direct equal in any other town in the United Kingdom or in Europe, where the closest parallels are for small blocks of buildings only.
History
The Rows of Chester are a unique system of continuous public walkways, probably dating from the mid-C13, which run through the frontages of the first floor of buildings situated on the four main streets of the City: Bridge Street, Watergate, Northgate and Eastgate. In the medieval period, the term ‘Row’ was used to describe assemblages of shops, often grouped by trade, in many towns. However, by at least 1356, and uniquely in Chester, the term was used to describe a walkway or covered gallery reached by steps that provided uninterrupted access to shops at a first floor or ‘Row’ level. Beneath the Row were semi-subterranean stone-walled ‘undercrofts’ housing street-level shops; the ground level behind the properties being 2-3 metres higher to enable level access to accommodation from the street behind. Private, domestic quarters were both behind the shops and in storeys above.
Access to the walkways is by way of steps located at the end of each section, and between street-level shops at every third or fourth property and may reflect commercial groupings within C13 and C14 Chester. The extant galleried walkways are approximately 4-6 metres wide and are generally separated from the street frontage by sloping ‘stallboards’, a distinctive feature of the Chester Rows. Many of the buildings have a horizontal division of ownership and the Rows are effectively independent streets with separate postal addresses. Although some of the Rows have been enclosed, where the walkways remain, the Row and its associated stallboard are public spaces.
Bridge Street has its origins as one of the principal streets in the Roman legionary fortress (of around AD 70) but evolved as Chester developed into an important medieval trading town. Possibly as early as the 1270s, Corvisers’ or Shoemakers’ ‘selds’ (stalls/market halls) were recorded on the west side of the street, comprising stone undercrofts with walkways and accommodation above. Following a period of stagnation, an upturn in the C16 to C17 re-established the Rows as the commercial centre of Chester and saw the significant rebuilding of many properties. Bridge Street was one of the first streets to see shop owners encroaching on the public highway to add shops, cellars, stairs, and house ‘forefronts’ although Chester’s Assembly required developers to accommodate the undercrofts and Rows. Many buildings were, however, refaced or altered further during the late C18 and early C19. In the later C19, concern over unsanitary conditions coupled with a revival of interest in the vernacular style prompted a programme of rebuilding along Bridge Street and by the late C19 it had been transformed into a metropolitan shopping area that included some larger retail premises, many of which had expanded into the domestic quarters above the Row.
Number 10 Bridge Street and Number 8 (part) Bridge Street Row West forms a two-storey town house which incorporates some early-C17 decorative elements but contains a former medieval open hall at its centre, with substantial galleries on three sides and stairs to a fourth, suggesting a remodelling of an earlier building. It is also above an undercroft of possible earlier date and is lower than its neighbours, with a scale and appearance more comparable with a small medieval townhouse. Perhaps suggesting some continuity with earlier leatherworking trades on Bridge Street, in the early C19 the undercroft was occupied by a saddle and harness maker. The building was altered in the late C19 and a small warehouse was built to the rear. By the end of the C19, it was a drapers, cartwright and millers, and the undercroft and row were in use as retail and service shops in the later C20.
Details
Undercroft and town house, forming part of the Chester Rows, with a small warehouse to the rear. Now a shop and office, it has visible features from the C17, with late-C19 and C20 alterations. Formerly known as: Number 10 Street & Number 8 Row (Part)
MATERIALS: timber frame, render, brick and slate.
PLAN: a small three-storey building forming the end part of the continuous walkway of the Bridge Street West Rows. It has an undercroft, galleried row and upper storey. Internally, there is evidence for the earlier plan form of the building, including a chamber above the Row walkway and former Row level shop, a galleried hall open to the roof and a small rear chamber, with a former stair. There is a warehouse to the rear.
EXTERIOR: the building is of three elements and comprises an undercroft, timber-framed Row, and upper storey beneath a grey slate roof. It faces east onto Bridge Street and has a C19 workshop to the rear.
UNDERCROFT
The undercroft has a late-C20 shopfront. The floor level is three steps down from the street level.
ROW
At Row level, the gallery has a timber balustrade to the front, which occupies almost the full height of the opening, with turned balusters and a wooden rail. The raised, sloping stallboard is approximately 3 metres from back to front, encroaching approximately 1 metre onto the walkway, an alteration which dates to the C19. There are iron stick balusters to the southern end of the stallboard. At the north end of the stallboard is a painted brick wall, possibly with stone banding, which forms the end wall to the continuous walkway and is part of the outer wall of the adjacent property, Numbers 2-8 Bridge Street, Numbers 2-8 (part) Bridge Street Row West, which was built in 1892. A jetty beam, located one metre back from the front elevation, has two empty mortices that show the location of earlier braces. Back from this, the timber ceiling joists are exposed and sit on a large, intermediate beam over the stall and the Row walkway. There is evidence for a hearth above the stall. The southern post has a carved console bracket to the jetty beam and a straight timber brace to the front. The face of the rear elevation of the walkway is blank, in painted brick and narrow timber studs.
UPPER STOREY
The timber fascia above the Row is moulded and carries a row of five quatrefoil panels which may have been refixed. There is a slight jetty, formed by a continuous moulded sill, below two pairs of multipaned timber casement windows. Above is a jettied gable with shaped fretted bargeboards and a decorative finial, which are probably late-C19 imitations of C17 elements. The front wall and gable are rendered and painted, to give the appearance of timber-framing, with herringbone braces.
INTERIOR: internally, the undercroft comprises a shop unit, wholly lined in modern cladding. The storeys above are partly lined but are believed to incorporate much of the C17 timber frame.
A void above the modern suspended ceiling of the undercroft shop occupies the front part of the Row storey; in the offices behind all features of probable interest are covered over. In the third storey, visible elements of the C17 structure include the north wall plate on posts and an inserted corbel, all inside the present north wall which probably dates from the rebuilding of Numbers 2-8 Bridge Street, Numbers 2-8 (part) Bridge Street Row West in 1892; two jowelled posts, now boarded, on the south side; and a partly visible tie-beam. A timber post, both wall plates, a tie-beam, purlins and braces are visible in the rear chamber. The third storey also reveals the former arrangement of the building, which comprised a chamber above the Row walkway and former Row level shop, a three-sided galleried hall open to the roof, and a small rear chamber, with a former stair. The gallery over the east, north and south of the former hall looks down on the false ceiling of the shop. Above is a partly clad roof structure, lit by an inserted rooflight.
The rooms in the former warehouse behind are now offices.
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 16 June 2023 to correct a typo in the description
