30 Bridge Street and 28 Bridge Street Row West

Details

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 19 September 2024 to amend the name, address and description, add references to selected sources and to reformat the text to current standards.

SJ4066SE
595-1/4/44

CHESTER CITY (IM)
BRIDGE STREET
No.30
and
BRIDGE STREET ROW WEST
No. 28

(Formerly listed as BRIDGE STREET AND ROW (West side), No.30 Street and No.28 Row, previously listed as: BRIDGE STREET No.30, Liberty)

10/01/89

GV
II
Number 30 Bridge Street and 28 Bridge Street Row West comprises a former undercroft, Row and townhouse rebuilt in around 1900 on the site of an earlier building known as The Harp and Crown public house. The Harp and Crown was described in the Cheshire Sheaf as being ‘next to Common-Hall Lane’ in 1751 and in 1707 a Thomas Heath had petitioned to ‘build a shop in the Row before the Harp and Crown Inn’. This appears to correspond with mid-C19 illustrations of the building which show an enclosed Row.

In 1873 Chester architect John Douglas produced plans and designs for a new building in this location and recorded the earlier structure, which was notable for having a large chamber on the Row stallboard next to Commonhall Street. Douglas (1830-1911) was prolific across the region and known for his ‘Old English’ style of half-timbered domestic work. Whilst these designs were not executed, more modest proposals, possibly by Douglas and Minshull (Douglas’ partner in the firm from 1889), were approved in 1899 and built in 1900. Both prior to, and after its reconstruction, the building appears to have been at least partly occupied by The Grotto Public House and, by 1940, was known as The Grotto Hotel. By the later 1970s the undercroft and Row were being used as shops and in the 1980s the building became a branch of Liberty’s of London. Alterations included a new shopfront and, with the exception of the cellars, a completely remodelled interior. The front to Bridge Street, which has a carved bressumer above the Row opening and supports capitals that are slightly out of true, may in part be a reconstruction rather than a new building; it is unique for its period in central Chester in being no taller than the building it replaced. It is constructed of painted sandstone and brick, and timber framing with plaster panels. It has a grey slate roof which is hipped to the south and to the rear.

EXTERIOR: the building is of three storeys, including an undercroft and Row level, plus cellars.

The undercroft has a street-level shopfront with stone piers and a 1980s doorway in an older recessed porch to the south, with double part-glazed doors, sidelights and a leaded overlight, a two-pane shop-window with leaded glazing above the transom and a similar window of one pane in the canted corner with Commonhall Street. There are 10 stone steps and one wooden step up to the Row at the south.

At Row level, the Row front has turned wooden balusters and a moulded rail, stone piers with capitals carrying the third-storey bressumer and a stone newel post at the head of the steps, all with roll-moulded arrises. The stallboard, which measures 2m from front to back, formerly had an enclosed northern bay that was used as a barber's shop. The Row walk is boarded. The shopfront to the rear of the Row walk is of black-painted brickwork with double doors, two shop-windows north of the doorway and one to the south, all are similar to those at street level. There is an S-shaped flight of steps, replaced in concrete, to Commonhall Street and, to the north, a 1970s concrete footbridge providing access to the adjacent Row (number 26 Bridge Street Row West). The ceiling above the Row and stallboard is plastered. A tall, shaped bracket supports the jettied third storey at the corner.

The northern part of the timber-framed third storey has a jettied front gable, similar to that of the previous building that occupied this site. The panels beneath the windows and to the sides of the windows in the front gable are shaped. There are two three-light casement windows in the gabled section and one in the southern bay.
The gable has slightly curved herringbone gable struts, bargeboards and a finial. There is a ridge chimney.

The face to Commonhall Street behind the Row steps is of painted brick up to the bottom of the Row level and is timber-framed above with S-curved braces. The informal window-pattern includes a curved oriel.

INTERIOR: the cellar probably dates in its present form from 1900. There are no visible features from before the 1970s in the upper storeys.

Listing NGR: SJ4052366195

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

470062

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Brown, A, The Rows of Chester: The Chester Rows Research Project, (1999), p163
Kelly's Directory of Cheshire, (1896)
Kelly's Directory of Cheshire, (1902)

Websites
Information on John Douglas from A Biographical Dictionary of the Architects of Greater Manchester, accessed 2 March 2023 from https://manchestervictorianarchitects.org.uk/architects/john-douglas
Information on early public houses from The Vanished Pubs of Chester Gallery, accessed 2 March 2023 from https://chesterwalls.info/barlows.html
Early images of Bridge Street from Cheshire Image Bank: Bridge Street and Commonhall Street 1970-1979 Image ref. ch7269, accessed 2 March 2023 from https://www.cheshireimagebank.org.uk

Other
Harris, R. Chester Rows Research Project Archive: Bridge Street West (1989-).
Chester City Council Improvement Committee Minutes: 4/1/1899 and 27/9/1899.
Cheshire Historic Environment Record: SMR numbers 8553 and 10171

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