NUMBERS 34, 36 AND 38 ROW NUMBERS 38, 40 AND 42 STREET

A Grade II* listed building comprising two undercrofts with a town house above, spanning Watergate Street and the Row in Chester. The structure is approximately 17.5 metres wide and now contains two undercroft shops and a bookmaker's shop at street level, with further shops at Row level.

The building preserves substantial medieval fabric from the early to mid-14th century at all levels. From the late 16th century onward, the storeys from Row level upward have been progressively modified, but the building represents the finest surviving example in Chester of the rarer medieval town house type with hall and buttery arranged parallel to the street. The fronts were largely rebuilt in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The construction consists of sandstone, timber framing and brick, with grey slate roofs. The building now rises to four storeys including the undercrofts, Row level, third storey and inserted attic storey.

At undercroft level, the front of No.38 Street was rebuilt in brick with no elements of particular note, though the east party wall displays medieval coursed sandstone. The undercroft interiors preserve significant medieval features: whitewashed coursed rubble sandstone walls with a doorway having chamfered jambs and a plain lintel on cusped corbels. A small recess sits at floor level in the west wall. A broad three-centred chamfered stone arch carries the front wall of the great hall above, with corbels for floor joists projecting from its front and rear faces. An arch-braced chamfered cross-beam stands in front of the arch and another behind it, with braces on corbels shaped to their profile and beam ends on bridging joists carried on rounded stone corbels. The undercroft to No.40 Street has its front part concealed by removable cladding, but the rear section shows coursed rubble sandstone walls and the rear face of a similar arch carrying the hall above, together with a comparable arch-braced beam.

At Row level, the front features end-piers rebuilt in brick, a central Tuscan column, spiked cast-iron railings and a bressumer with facia and cornice. The former house frontage behind the Row walk is rendered, with a tripartite sash window of 8, 16 and 8 panes west of centre and a modern glazed door in a pilaster doorcase. Nos 40 and 42 have late 19th-century shopfronts to the undercroft with moulded window frames and pilasters bearing bell-shaped capitals. The Row front displays two bays to No.34 and one to No.36, with four shaped posts and a timber rail on thin turned balusters. The posts at the corners of No.34 are set against medieval jowled oak posts morticed for a deep guard-rail, now lost. Two shaped posts face Crook Street, dating to circa 1900. Behind the Row walk, a cross-boarded oak door of heavy planks on long wrought-iron hinges survives in a moulded oak frame of large scantling, with an inserted two-light window beside it.

The third and attic storeys have a rendered gable to the street with two replaced windows to each storey. Applied timber-framed fronts to these storeys, each with a gable to the street, date to circa 1900 and are of no architectural interest.

Behind the Row walk, the west side of No.42 Street and No.36 Row toward Crook Street consists of 17th-century brick, repaired in parts during the 20th century, with a brick band of three courses at third storey floor level, a corner chimney, a large lateral chimney and a smaller chimney further back. Replaced cross-windows have cambered brick heads. The rear displays a gable to No.32, a roof parallel with the rear to No.34 and a long gabled rear projection to No.36, with altered loading doors to the third storey, altered windows and a chimney between Nos 32 and 34.

The interior preserves exceptional medieval features. Nos 32 and 34 Row contain the former great hall and screens passage, with chambers in front of them. Much of the hall's walling is concealed by later finishes in No.32 but remains visible in all storeys of No.34. The screens passage is marked by the front and rear doorways of No.34, an altered archway in the front wall of the hall and three chamfered pointed arches in the party wall with No.36, now blocked. A rebated pointed archway formed of two stones appears in the front wall of the hall east of the screens passage, with corbels for the former chamber floor joists visible.

Within the hall, a large early 17th-century stack with back-to-back inglenooks at Row level was inserted, together with an intermediate floor incorporating crossed chamfered oak beams, a timber-framed partition wall between Nos 32 and 34, fireplaces to the third storey (that to No.34 having a plaster overmantel with round panels between incorrect Ionic pilasters), and a ceiling with moulded plastered beams. A stair stands in each property against the front wall of the former great hall. Some small panelling survives against the partition in No.32. The altered stair in No.32 occupies a close-studded well; a stair with ornate balusters survives, damaged, between the third and fourth storeys in No.34, with a section of balustrade displayed. Part of the stone flag floor is visible at the foot of the stair in No.32. Damaged timber framing marks the partition between front rooms of Nos 32 and 34, with large framing between Nos 34 and 36. A corner fireplace stands in the front room of No.32.

The undercroft of No.42 Street is entirely covered in modern lining with no structural features visible. The rebated side of the three buttery arches shows in the party wall of No.36 Row with No.34 Row, with three beams to the Row storey ceiling. The front room of the third storey is plastered except for a glazed panel revealing the large framing and wattle of the party wall with No.34. The second room has a chamfered beam running front to back with later joists, a chamfered beam over the partition to the third room, and a corner fireplace in the third room. The attic storey has a two-panel door to the front room, with the ridge-piece, rough purlins and two collars visible.

No.36 Row occupies the former buttery and front chambers, and a later rear wing now incorporating No.2 Crook Street (not included), which displays no visible internal features of special interest.

The form of the medieval house is comparable to Tackley's Inn in Oxford. The building was originally listed on 10 January 1972.