Number 23 Row Lyon House

CHESTER CITY (IM)

SJ4066SW WATERGATE STREET AND ROW 595-1/3/388 (South side) 10/01/72 No.23 Row (Lyon House) (Formerly Listed as: WATERGATE STREET No 23 Street (Lyon House))

GV II

Town house, now offices, probably on the site of the former detached kitchen behind No.17 Street (Leche House) (qv) to which it is linked by a roofed passage. The present house late C17 or early C18, altered. Brown brick in irregular bond; double-depth grey slate roof. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys, double-fronted. The east front has an inserted 6-panel door and camber-arched doorcase under a damaged stone lintel with carved rose and foliage; renewed casement with 3 lights of 3 panes right of door to each of lower 2 storeys and 24-pane horizontally sliding sash to third storey; brick cambered arch to blocked opening left of door and small inserted casement to second storey; tall central staircase window of 44 panes has segmental-arched brick head, cut into 3-course brick band at first floor level; the band at second floor level is carried up over the window head. Left end has 4-pane sashes; right end is plain, with small projecting wing; gables are coped. Rear has 6-panel door in panelled doorcase under flat, moulded, lead-dressed hood; 16-pane near-flush sash left of door; inserted casement right; a casement of three 2-pane lights to each upper storey under segmental brick arches. A cast-iron Gothick window to rear of wing. INTERIOR: square in plan, has 4 rooms to each storey, probably originally with central passage; the north-west room of first storey incorporates part of the passage and has panelled dado and altered breast of former corner fireplace; rehung door to north-east room, probably of oak, has 8 panels with heart-shaped apertures in upper panels; north-east room has good stop-chamfered oak beam parallel with front and door of 6 fielded panels to stair hall; softwood dogleg stair has octagonal newel, 2 turned balusters per step and moulded handrail; round-arched opening to stairwell from north-west room; south east room has door with 6 margin panels and stop-chamfered oak beam parallel with front; south-west room has door of 6 fielded panels and panelled embrasures to sashes in south wall; 2 carved panels under western window, each with putto and swags. Rooms on second storey have replaced 4-panel

doors; the north-east and south-east rooms have an oak stop-chamfered beam similar to those in rooms below, but hidden by false ceiling in the south-east room which is now kitchen and toilets. The third storey has no visible features of interest. Previously listed at Street level in error. (Chester Rows Research Project: Brown AN & Grenville JC & Turner RC: Watergate Street: Chester: 1988-: 29 (LECHE HOUSE)).

Listing NGR: SJ4046966225