Details
CHESTER CITY (IM)
SJ4066SE BRIDGE STREET AND ROW
595-1/4/58 (East side)
10/01/72 No.11 Street and No.11 Row
(Formerly Listed as:
BRIDGE STREET
No.11 Street & No.11 Row)
GV II*
Undercroft and town house, now undercroft shop, Row shop and
storage. Early to mid C14, C17, C18, early and later C20.
Sandstone and brick.
EXTERIOR: 4 storeys including undercroft and Row; one bay.
Shopfront to street has recessed central doorway with, to each
side, a 1-pane wing-light and a 1-pane front window, all in
early C20 manner; 10 sandstone steps repaired in concrete to
Row, south; sandstone end piers through undercroft and Row
storeys. Plain timber rail on simply moulded balusters to Row
front and return to steps; 2 cast-iron intermediate columns;
sloped boarded stallboard 2.0m from front to back;
terrazzo-paved Row walk; shopfront probably early C19, but
altered, has grooved pilasters, panelled wood stall-risers,
recessed central modern glazed door, moulded slender frames to
a 1-pane wing light and a 1-pane front window to each side and
a small fascia; door to back passage, south, has 4 flush
panels; plaster ceiling; shop fascia covers the Row-top front
bressumer. The front to the third and fourth storeys is
rebuilt in C20 brick, but approximately in its C17-C18 form;
windows have painted sills and wedge lintels; the third storey
has 3 nearly flush sashes, now of 4 panes; the fourth storey
has 2 recessed casements of two 8-pane lights without
mullions; stone-coped front gable; cast-iron rainwater pipe
and head at each side.
INTERIOR: a C18 brick cross-wall divides the front and back
parts of the undercroft: the front part, now a small shop, has
a central oak chamfered samson post 0.37m square, the chamfers
stopped at top but not bottom, with a heavy oak pad carrying a
beam 0.45m wide by 0.21m high, running from front to back; the
walls are lined. In the rear part of the undercroft, reached
by C18 stone steps from the Row shop, the beam has been cut
off, but the medieval sandstone side-walls, the patched rear
wall with a corbel formerly carrying the beam and a sole-plate
in the north wall, level with the former beam, are visible; a
C18 chimney-breast of brick, and the steps, against the south
wall.
The Row shop has a good Edwardian hardwood interior, with a
stair to an arcaded gallery at third storey level, having
tapered square posts, with entasis, round arches and triple
keys; a probably C17 chamfered oak beam across shop and rear
passage. The chamber above the Row has a C17 beam morticed for
a former stud partition; the rear wing, east, has Georgian
brickwork and a Georgian window. A narrow stair leads to the
altered fourth storey which has some oak studding,
wattle-and-daub and a C17 trenched-purlin truss.
The grading is primarily for the medieval undercroft; the
intact interior of the Edwardian Row shop is the best example
of its period in Chester.
(Chester Rows Research Project: Harris R: Archive, Bridge
Street, East).
Listing NGR: SJ4054666253
