4 Eastgate Street and 2 Eastgate Row South

Details

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SJ4066SE
595-1/4/169

CHESTER CITY (IM)
EASTGATE STREET AND ROW (South side)
No.4 Street and No.2 Row

(Formerly Listed as: EASTGATE STREET No.4 Street and No.2 Row)

23/05/67

GV
II*

4 Eastgate Street and 2 Eastgate Row South was built as an undercroft and Row shop with accommodation above in the late C19 on the site of an earlier former undercroft, Row and townhouse. It was rebuilt in an opulent Vernacular Revival style in 1888 for Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, the first Duke of Westminster, landowner, property developer, and MP for Chester. The architect Thomas Meakin Lockwood had established a practice in Chester in the 1860s, and his work came to dominate the city’s architectural scene towards the end of the C19. Lockwood adopted the nationally popular Vernacular Revival style in several projects along Bridge Street, including the adjoining corner building of 1 Bridge Street, 1 Bridge Street Row East and 2 Eastgate Street, which was designed at the same time. Walton’s, a Wrexham Jeweller, moved into the adjacent shop at 2 Eastgate Street and 1 Bridge Street in 1909 and expanded into 4 Eastgate Street in 1935, occupying the two undercroft shops until the company closed in 2021. The building is constructed of sandstone and timber framing with a brown tile roof and terracotta ridge tiles. It is now (2024) an undercroft shop and Row shop in separate occupancy, with ancillary uses above.

EXTERIOR: The building is of four storeys, including an undercroft and Row, plus attics.

The street level has a reworked shopfront to the undercroft, which is now entered from 2 Eastgate Street. It has two windows of three panes above panelled stallrisers. Red sandstone end piers rise through the undercroft and Row storeys.

The Row level has turned timber balusters and a moulded rail to the front opening, a sloped boarded stallboard measuring 1.65m from front to back between stone-banded brick cross-walls, and a boarded Row walkway. The shopfront to the Row is original, with a recessed glazed door and showcase to its east side, and a mullioned and transomed shop window to the west between reverse-taper carved pilasters. The main window has four panes to the front and one pane adjacent to the entrance on panelled stallrisers. Above the window is a frieze and dentilated cornice. There is a further short shop window at the west end of the front, which has now been incorporated into 1 Bridge Street Row South. Above the Row walkway and stallboard are carved cross beams on console brackets and stop-chamfered joists to a plaster ceiling. The classical capitals to the end piers carry mask corbels, supporting the carved and stop-chamfered bressumer above the Row opening.

The third storey has a pair of console brackets on the front of each end pier, and three secondary and eight pairs of tertiary brackets from the bressumer to the carved jetty beam. Above this is a row of panels with two coats of arms beneath a continuous window comprising two transomed lights under round arches on richly carved herms, flanked by five-light mullioned and transomed oriel windows. The oriel windows are supported on ornate brackets and have a carved panel frieze. The key of each central arch, and a console bracket at each end of the elevation, support the carved fourth-storey jetty beam, which is dated 1888.

The fourth storey has richly ornamented small-framing beneath and to each side of a five-light mullioned and transomed casement window. Four console brackets on herms carry a cove-jettied front gable, which has two pargeted panels beneath a three-light mullioned casement window. The gable has small-framing to each side of the window and close-studding above it, with bargeboards and a shaped finial. All the upper storey windows have patterned leaded glazing.

The west elevation rises above 2 Eastgate Row and 1 Bridge Street Row South, which is by the same architect. The fourth storey and end-gable are expressed in the same way as the front, but with a prominent shaped sandstone gable chimney.

INTERIOR: Internally, the surfaces in the street-level shop are covered. The Row-level shop has an 1888 corner fireplace, a good ornate late-C19 cast-iron spiral stair, and there are some features in the third and fourth storeys. The roof structure is visible in the attic.

Listing NGR: SJ4054066272

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

470203

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Brown, A, The Rows of Chester: The Chester Rows Research Project, (1999), p119; p171
Lewis, CP, Thacker, AT, 'Topography 900-1914: Victorian and Edwardian, 1840-1914' in A History of the County of Chester in City of Chester: General History and Topography, Vol. 5:1, (2003), 229-238

Other
Chester City Council Improvement Committee Minutes: 1887-1888
Kelly's Directory of Cheshire (1902).
Kelly's Directory of Cheshire (1910).

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