55 Bridge Street and 61 Bridge Street Row East

55, Bridge Street, CH1 1NG

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Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1376103
Date first listed:: 10-Jan-1972
List Entry Name:: 55 Bridge Street and 61 Bridge Street Row East
Statutory Address:: 55, Bridge Street, CH1 1NG

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Date:: 2002-04-16
Reference:: IOE01/06867/35
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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1376103
Date first listed:: 10-Jan-1972
Date of most recent amendment:: 06-Aug-1998
List Entry Name:: 55 Bridge Street and 61 Bridge Street Row East
Statutory Address 1:: 55, Bridge Street, CH1 1NG
Statutory Address 2:: 61, 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:: 55, Bridge Street, CH1 1NG
Statutory Address:: 61, 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 40575 66136

Details

This list entry was subjected to a Minor Enhancement 17 September 2024 to update name, address and details, add Source and reformat the text to current standards

SJ4066SE 595-1/4/76

CHESTER CITY (IM) BRIDGE STREET No 55

AND

BRIDGE STREET ROW EAST No 61

(Formerly listed as BRIDGE STREET AND ROW (East side) No.55 Street and No.61 Row, previously listed as: BRIDGE STREET No.55 Street & No.61 Row)

10/01/72

GV II

Number 55 Bridge Street and 61 Bridge Street Row East comprises an C18 undercroft below a Row and upper storey that were rebuilt in 1889 as a commercial art gallery. The alterations were carried out by the architect Thomas Edwards for David Sherratt, head of Sherratt and Company Antique Dealers. Sherratt was already a tenant of the property, which was owned by the Duke of Westminster, and the Chester City Council’s Improvement Committee Minutes of 1889 record the work as involving ‘a new front and alterations’. Edwards and his partner, William Henry Kelly, took over Chester Vernacular-Revival architect James Harrison’s practice on his death in 1866 and were based at number 7 St Werburgh Street. They were also responsible for the Coach and Horses Public House at number 39 Northgate Street and 39 Northgate Row, next to the Town Hall.

The building was used as a gallery into the late C20 but now houses a café in the undercroft shop with a separate two storey restaurant in the Row and third storey. The building has a brick and sandstone undercroft and a timber-framed front elevation with plaster panels. The side walls are of brick and the brown tile roof has its ridge at right angles to the street.

EXTERIOR: the building is of three storeys, expressed as four, including an undercroft and Row.

The undercroft has a modern shopfront to the street between fluted pilasters with carved foliar motifs. There are nine sandstone steps up to the Row at the north end. The front of the Row and upper storeys is richly ornamented.

The Row has a heavy timber rail to the front opening and return on moulded rectangular balusters. The upper parts of the end-piers are sandstone and have griffin capitals and there are two intermediate posts with linenfold reeding. There is a sloped boarded stallboard measuring 2.23m from front to back. The Row shopfront has incised patterns in the end pilasters, a recessed central door with a fielded base-panel, moulded frames to the wing and front shopwindows, and a fascia with shaped brackets. There are timber-framed plaster panels to the ceiling. The Row-top bressumer has stopped moulded chamfers and is carried on ornate brackets, the central pair form an arch which is inscribed SHERRATT & CO in raised capitals.

The third storey is expressed externally as two storeys. The slightly protruding jetty beam to the third storey is inscribed .TO.GOD.MY.KING.AND.MY.COUNTRY. Above it are eight arched panels which contain relief mouldings inscribed: ‘and departed into egypt’; ‘in Whom I am Well pleased’; ‘Suzanna and the two Elders’; ‘Joseph and his Mistress’; ‘I call For My Friends’; ‘Cain And Abel’; ‘Jeremiah’ and ‘praise him upon the harpe’. Above the six central panels, five moulded brackets support a pair of four-light mullioned and transomed leaded oriel windows separated by a round-arched niche holding a life-size statue of King Charles I with a sword, gold orb, sceptre and crown. A middle rail to each side of the oriels has an ornate panel below and above.

The ornate jetty beam to the faux fourth storey is on carved end-brackets and is inscribed .ART.GALLERY. Above is a row of 10 ornate panels and a five-light mullioned and transomed casement window with pictorial leaded glazing. To each side are three panels, each with two slightly S-curved herringbone struts. There is a large and elaborate wrought-iron hanging sign dated 1889. This bears a shield that is now blank. The cove-jettied gable has four brackets, each resting on a spiral-moulded colonnette; that on the south corner-post is replaced. The framing to the gable is thinner than that below and has square panels with quadrant braces. The gable has carved bargeboards and a shaped finial. There is a lateral chimney set back to the south.

INTERIOR: the extent to which the 1889 design of the interior of the Row and third storey remains visible is unusual for Chester. Four visible beams in the undercroft shop and the lower part of the side walls are probably C18. The Row storey forms two chambers of the former gallery, linked through a depressed plastered archway. The rear chamber has a hipped plaster ceiling with a lantern of five lights to the west and east and three lights to the north and south. It has former tinted chequerboard leaded glazing remaining in eight lights. The front chamber has a substantial stair to the upper storey of two closed-string flights with heavy turned newels, covered steps, two turned balusters per step and a heavy moulded rail. The front windows are as described for the exterior. There is a two-light window with a slender mullion, rounded corners and lattice leaded panes to the stair, with two similar but smaller and round-arched windows above. The north wall is plain, the south wall has three simple piers which carry three cased trusses on Gothic-moulded corbels. There is a six-pane ridge-light over the second bay and a south light over the third bay.

Listing NGR: SJ4057566136

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 470093
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Hartwell, C, Hyde, M, Pevsner, N, Hubbard, E, The Buildings of England: Cheshire, (2011), p 260
Brown, A, 'The Rows of Chester: The Chester Rows Research Project' in English Heritage Archaeological Report, (1999), p124; p159
Websites
Information on David Sherratt from www.findagrave.com, accessed 20 December 2022 from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/177062404/david-sherratt
Other
Improvement Committee Minutes: Chester City Council: 18/9/1889
Kelly’s Directory of Cheshire (1910), p230
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.