43 Bridge Street, and 49 Bridge Street Row East

43, Bridge Street, CH1 1NG

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Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1376089
Date first listed:: 28-Jul-1955
List Entry Name:: 43 Bridge Street, and 49 Bridge Street Row East
Statutory Address:: 43, Bridge Street, CH1 1NG

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Date:: 2001-06-30
Reference:: IOE01/06877/10
Rights:: © Dr John L. Wishlade. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1376089
Date first listed:: 28-Jul-1955
Date of most recent amendment:: 06-Aug-1998
List Entry Name:: 43 Bridge Street, and 49 Bridge Street Row East
Statutory Address 1:: 43, Bridge Street, CH1 1NG
Statutory Address 2:: 49, Bridge Street Row East, CH1 1NG

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: 43, Bridge Street, CH1 1NG
Statutory Address:: 49, Bridge Street Row East, CH1 1NG

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Cheshire West and Chester (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SJ 40571 66166

Details

This list entry was subjected to a Minor Enhancement 16 September 2024 to update name, address and details, add Source and reformat the text to current standards

SJ4066SE 595-1/4/72

CHESTER CITY (IM) BRIDGE STREET No 43

AND

BRIDGE STREET ROW EAST No 49

(Formerly Listed as BRIDGE STREET AND ROW (East side) No.43 Street and No.49 Row, previously listed as: BRIDGE STREET No.43 Street & No.49 Row)

28/07/55

GV II*

Number 43 Bridge Street and 49 Bridge Street Row East is a former rectory above undercroft and Row shops. It is thought to have been erected in the mid-C17, probably on the site of a medieval undercroft and Row. The building was bequeathed by Lettice Whitley to St Michael's Parish on her death in 1709, to augment the stipend of the vicar and his successors in perpetuity. Whitley was associated with two of the most powerful Chester families of the mid- and later C17. She was the daughter of Sir Francis Gamull, Mayor and later MP for Chester, who was an active Royalist and defended the City during the English Civil War. She also married three times, the last of whom was a younger brother of Roger Whitley, Whig MP for Chester, sometime mayor and fierce political opponent of Thomas Grosvenor, the Tory MP. The building was altered in the early C18 but was used as a rectory until it was sold by the parish in 1907 to an antiques dealer who carried out internal alterations. The late-C19 and early-C20 trade directories list the undercroft and Row level shops as being in separate occupation. In 1878 the undercroft was occupied by a plumber, glazier and gas fitters, becoming a grocers by 1902. The Row was a stationers in 1878 and a fancy goods dealer by 1902. The building was restored in 1975 and is timber framed with plaster panels. It has a grey slate roof with its ridge at right-angles to the street.

EXTERIOR: the narrow building is of four storeys, including an undercroft and Row. There is a modern shopfront to the street which covers the undercroft structure. The Row has an oak rail on turned balusters to the front opening, a level boarded stallboard measuring 2.02m from front to back, and a flagged Row walkway. There are continuous oak corner-posts through the Row and third storeys. The Row shopfront is of the early C20 and has a recessed central entrance and windows with slender moulded sides and rounded top corners with carved spandrels. Console brackets on the corner-posts carry an ovolo bressumer above the Row. Behind this is a parallel chamfered cross-beam, exposed joists and an altered rear beam.

The small-framed third storey has a row of five ornamented panels and a rail with a strapwork pattern. There is a three-light mullioned and transomed leaded casement window with two plaster panels to each side and a patterned rail above it.

The mildly jettied fourth storey has a row of seven small panels and a small leaded three-light casement window with a pair of panels to each side. The gable displays its simple queen post structure and has patterned bargeboards and a finial. There is a lateral chimney set back to the south.

INTERIOR: the undercroft is lined but five roughly chamfered squared beams towards the rear are partly visible and are C17 or earlier.

In the Row and upper storeys there are C17 features including the front wall, the former rear wall, which now forms an internal cross-wall, a fine but incomplete moulded plaster ceiling and the form of a galleried hall open to the roof. The principal C18 feature is the stair to the third storey which rises into the largely-C20 rear extension, which probably replaced a Georgian wing. The reordering of the interior, undertaken in 1907, is difficult to identify completely.

The Row storey is largely lined but has part of a C17 plaster ceiling and an early-C18 oak newel stair of one flight up to the third storey. This has a closed string, two barley-sugar balusters per step and a heavy moulded rail.

The former rear wall to the third storey bridges the front of the stair-well. It has a six-light mullioned and transomed leaded casement window, which may have been curtailed to accommodate the doorway to the hall to the south. Beneath the casement there are three C19 carved panels, in the manner of the late Middle Ages, which depict Stations of the Cross. These were probably brought in and inserted by Crawford shortly after 1907 and may be plaster casts. The hall is open to the roof, and its lower part was probably elongated by the removal of a former chamber over the Row. An altered early-C18 oak newel stair with barley-sugar balusters leads to the north gallery and the balustrade of the east cross-landing carries three further Stations of the Cross panels. The gallery leads to a small fourth storey front chamber and a small early-C20 east office with a leaded oriel window.

The roof structure has three queen-post trusses, an inserted king-post truss to the east and purlins. At the fourth storey level the former rear wall, which is still the rear at this level, has a large tie-beam and a three-light leaded casement window with an inserted horizontal-sliding central sash.

Listing NGR: SJ4057166166

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 470077
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Brown, A, 'The Rows of Chester: The Chester Rows Research Project' in English Heritage Archaeological Report, (1999), p158
Websites
Information on Lettice Whiteley, as a member of the Gamull family, accessed 28 May 2024 from www.geni.com/projects/Gamul-House-Cheshire-England/27214
Other
Kelly’s Directory of Cheshire (1902), p215
Post Office Directory of Cheshire (1878), p112

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.