Number 51 Street

CHESTER CITY (IM)

SJ4066SE EASTGATE STREET AND ROW 595-1/4/167 (North side) No.51 Street

GV II

Formerly known as: King's Arms Kitchen Public House EASTGATE STREET. Public house, now enterprise centre. Rebuilt 1861 probably for the Chester Charity Trustees. Yellow sandstone-dressed orange English garden wall bond brickwork with grey slate roof. EXTERIOR: formerly free-standing, now with glazed passage from Midland Bank Nos 47 & 53-57 Street (qv); direct access at second storey level from City Wall. The lower storey has sillband, boarded door in shoulder-arched opening with sidelights and mullioned overlight and 6 shoulder-arched 2-pane sashes. The second storey has a short stone-slab bridge from City Wall to door of 12 ornate panels in shoulder-arched opening with narrow 2-pane sidelights and mullioned 5-pane overlight, blank trefoil head over each pane, under a triple arch carried on four C13-style colonnettes; south of the doorway a corbelled bay projects with a triple lancet and a single lancet to each side; one lancet north of the doorway. The attic storey has a corbelled bay above the doorway, with an arched sash in case with colonnettes; a similar but broader gable, south, has triple arched sashes; a small shoulder-arched sash between door-bay and south gable and a similar sash to north. The north end has 2 shoulder-arched sashes, 2 sashes in yellow brick arched openings and a gabled outshut with 2 small brick-arched sashes. The second storey has a central stone-arched sash with 2 similar sashes to each side. The third storey has a pair of stone-arched sashes and a small shoulder-arched sash; all sashes are of 2 panes. A stone-capped banded brick ridge chimney. INTERIOR: largely gutted when converted in 1978 into offices for the Midland Bank. The former public house had a room reserved for the Honourable Incorporation of the King's Arms Kitchen, a drinking and social club which burlesqued the Corporation with mayor, recorder, sheriffs, town clerk and regalia, founded 1770 or earlier and wound up in 1896. The furnishings of the room were transferred to the Grosvenor Museum, Grosvenor Street, Chester in 1978. On stylistic grounds James Harrison looks to be the most probable architect; cf No.40 Bridge Street and Row (qv) 1858.

(Improvement Committee Minutes: Chester City Council: 19 June: 1861-; Bartholomew City Guides: Harris B: Chester: Edinburgh: 1979-: 53-4).

Listing NGR: SJ4069566375