Number 48 And 50 Street Numbers 48, 50 And 52 Row Three Old Arches

An undercroft and town house, with No.52 Street now part of a department store. Dating from around 1200, early to mid 14th century, late 18th century, 19th century and 20th century. Built of sandstone and brick, painted, with grey slate roofs hipped to the fronts and ridges at right-angles to the street.

The building comprises 4 storeys including the undercroft and Row levels. The most striking features are the 3 stone arches at the front of No.48, among the earliest identified shopfronts in England, and the great hall spanning both street numbers, the largest of its kind in Chester's Row buildings. No.52 Street occupies the site of the former medieval service wing.

No.48 is known as Three Old Arches. The shopfront facing the street dates to the 19th and 20th centuries with a central entrance, a single-pane display window to the north and a 4-pane flush sash to the south. The window cases are mid-to-late 19th century with a cornice above carried on 6 brackets. The piers of the 3 arches pass through the undercroft, which has been altered, and the Row storey. The Row front displays 4 piers with chamfered front and back edges and 3 round arches chamfered to the front. The spandrels, flush to the front with chamfered voussoirs, are less than half the pier thickness and originally supported the base-plate of the timber-framed upper structure. Plain cast-iron stick balusters and rails run along the Row front in each archway. Notably, there is no stallboard, consistent with the early date of the arches. A granolithic Row walk runs along the front. The rendered rear wall of the Row has a flush sash of 8, 12, 8 panes with shutters on gudgeon hinges, a 12-pane flush sash and a door of 6 margined panels. A massive beam crosses the Row at the north end, with an exposed oak beam to the south. The ceiling is plastered, and at the north end modern double doors connect to No.50. The third and fourth storeys are of brick with flush quoins at the corner. Three flush sashes on the third storey have painted stone sills and gauged brick heads with flush keystones. The fourth storey has a tripartite sash of 4, 12, 4 panes, which was removed for repair at the time of inspection. A plain coped parapet crowns the building.

No.50 has a rendered plinth with wood pilasters, a central entrance, a 1-pane window on each side and a cornice on shaped brackets. The upper storeys are brick. The Row is enclosed with 2 nearly-flush 16-pane sashes with painted stone sills and cambered brick heads. The third storey has 2 similar sashes, while the fourth storey features a tripartite 4, 12, 4 pane sash, also removed for repair when inspected. A plain stone coping runs along the top. Both Nos.48 and 50 have 20th-century extensions to the rear.

Internally, the undercroft of No.48 contains cast-iron columns now replacing two 2-centred double-chamfered arches that previously rested on an octagonal central pier, removed around 1900. No.50 retains the original slightly-pointed early-to-mid 14th-century arch on shallow-moulded half-octagon piers; the pier bases lie below the present floor level, with a 18th-to-19th-century rock-cut cellar beneath.

The Row storey contains substantial elements of the 14th-century stone hall, aligned parallel with the street. The east and north walls, with much masonry intact, reveal dimensions of 12.4 metres north to south by 8.88 metres east to west. The east wall features a 2-centred archway with roll and hollow mouldings on the outer side opening to the former screens passage to the south. It has a square order rebated under a segmental relieving arch on the hall side, with vertical grooves east for the former buttery partition and west for the screen. An adjacent narrow 2-centred archway, probably formerly leading to a stair, is chamfered to the hall but plain to the outer side, beneath a chamfered relieving arch. Immediately north is a chamfered segmental-arched opening, formerly to the shop, and by the north corner a fourth archway probably formerly to a private room associated with the shop. The archway chamfers terminate in pyramidal stops. A 16th-century open fireplace with moulded bressumer is centrally positioned on the north wall, its location suggesting possibly earlier origins, now housing a 19th-century cast-iron range. A cambered oak inglenook-bressumer runs along the south wall. The south and west walls are now plastered and are likely post-medieval in origin. The third and fourth storeys contain no individual features of special architectural interest visible to inspection.