17 AND 19, LOWER BRIDGE STREET (See details for further address information)

CHESTER CITY (IM)

SJ4066SE LOWER BRIDGE STREET 595-1/4/251 (East side) 10/01/72 Nos.17 AND 19 AND Nos.1 and 2 Unity Passage

GV II

2-bay undercroft and town house, now 2 shops and town houses. The shops containing probably late medieval elements of the undercrofts, the upper storeys rebuilt early to mid C19 and altered 1970s. Lined render on brick; grey slate roof, altered to rear. EXTERIOR: 4 storeys, 2 bays. Handed shopfronts with part-glazed doors and shop-windows above stallrisers with rows of quatrefoils; central, intermediate and end pilasters and simple fascias. Each upper storey has 2 Gothick windows proportioned as Georgian sashes but containing fixed lights and casements with cusped-arch glazing bars; painted sills, probably of stone, to the second storey and fourth storey; sillband to third storey. The boldly-projecting boxed cornice on brackets and the lateral chimneys are in Italianate manner. INTERIOR: at street level a central party wall divides the 2 shops, probably on the line of a former arcade of posts between the bays of the undercroft; the spacing of the cross-beams of heavy section is the same in both shops; some cornices; the walls are clad. The second storey, with access via steps to No.11A Lower Bridge Street (qv), has the stallboard of the former Row enclosed and the Row walk preserved as Unity Passage. The enclosure of the Row stallboard to form a chamber appears to be early C19, but in 1894 JR Crawford proposed to build cottages to the rear, and renamed the rear courtyard, formerly Rock Court, Unity Place; he had No.49 Bridge Street Row (qv) and rebuilt No.21 Lower Bridge Street in 1895 (not included). The former Row storey and the third and fourth storeys could not be inspected, but on cursory inspection in 1988 are stated to have revealed no features of special interest. (Chester Rows Research Project: Grenville J: Lower Bridge Street East: 1988-; Improvement Committee Minutes: Chester City Council: 1/8/1894).

Listing NGR: SJ4060066029