26 Eastgate Street and 32 Eastgate Row South

Details

This list entry was subjected to a Minor Enhancement on 19 February 2025 to update the description and add Source and reformat the text to current standards

SJ4066SE
595-1/4/180

CHESTER CITY (IM)
EASTGATE STREET AND ROW (South side)
No.26 Street and No.32 Row

(Formerly Listed as: EASTGATE STREET No.26 Street & No.32 Row)

28/07/55

GV
II*

26 Eastgate Street and 32 Eastgate Row South are an undercroft, Row and former townhouse constructed in the C17, probably on the site of an earlier building. The building was altered in the early C18, and then restored in 1858 in Vernacular Revival style by Thomas Mainwaring Penson for a local jewellers, Butt and Company Ltd. Penson became a leading figure in this style, and his work can be seen elsewhere on Eastgate Street, including at 22 Eastgate Street and 24-28 Eastgate Row South, and 28 Eastgate Street and 34 Eastgate Row South. The building at 26 Eastgate Street and 32 Eastgate Row South is considered to be one of the earliest forerunners of Vernacular Revival style in Chester.

Butts Jewellers had links to the Richardson family, who established a goldsmiths in Eastgate Row in the early C18. Butts occupied both the undercroft and Row shops until the company was taken over by Mappin and Webb in the mid-C20. They retained the Row shop as a jewellers until the early C21, with ancillary offices and storage above. The undercroft shop is now (2024) a separate retail premises.

The building is of sandstone and timber-framed construction with plaster panels. The west elevation is of old brown brick. There is a grey-slate roof, with its ridge at right angles to Eastgate Street.

EXTERIOR: The building is of four storeys including an undercroft and Row.
The undercroft has a modern shopfront to the street, between two sandstone stop-chamfered end piers. These continue up through the Row and have half-round responds and foliar capitals to the Row storey.
The Row level has Gothic cast-iron railings to the front opening, and a covered sloping stallboard that measures 2.2m from front to back. The Row has a terrazzo walkway and a shopfront with a panelled ceiling above the stallboard and Row walk.

The third storey is carried on the Row-top bressumer, which has moulded chamfers. Above this is a row of 10 small-framed panels beneath a leaded five-light mullioned and transomed casement window with two close-stud panels to each side. Four quadrant brackets, carried by angel corbels with 10 small panels between, support the fourth-storey jetty beam, which has a moulded arris.

The fourth storey has a central canted, three-light oriel window on a massive moulded corbel, set within an arch-braced truss. There is a S-shaped strut to each side of the oriel and chamfered corner posts. The gable has richly carved and crocketed bargeboards, and a carved finial with a pendant.

The western brick elevation has a replacement three-light mullioned window and a tall lateral chimney.
INTERIOR: The undercroft, the floor level of which is three steps down from the street, has all of its internal surfaces covered. The early-C20 Row shop has the form of a previous galleried hall. There is an early-C18 open-string, open-well stair to the rear with plinthed newels, three vase balusters per step, shaped brackets, and a heavy swept rail (all painted). There is a C17 parlour above the Row, which has oak wainscot to all walls with two rows of panels beneath the dado rail, three rows of vertical proportion above, and a row of broad panels beneath an oak cornice. The parlour also has a carved oak fireplace with architraves flanked by foliar motifs and a frieze with a fine pictorial panel of old Chester and the Dee in relief, between swags. There is an oak door of two short, two long, and two short fielded panels, boxed beams, and the original joists.

Listing NGR: SJ4060766280

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

470224

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Brown, A, The Rows of Chester: The Chester Rows Research Project, (1999), p110; 172

Other
Cheshire Records Office: Butt and Company Ltd Jewellers, reference ZCR 92
Chester City Council Improvement Committee Minutes 1858- 23/6/1858
Harris, R Chester Rows Research Project: Eastgate Street South (1989-1990).

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