Number 21 Row Number 27 Street

This is a two-story town house and shop, rebuilt in the early 18th century and extended to the rear in the early 19th century. It was refurbished on the front in the mid-19th century and is now a street shop and a shop within the Row. The front is painted brick with stone dressings in a Flemish bond pattern. The roof is hidden.

The building has four stories and one bay, incorporating both a street-level shopfront and a Row shop. The front features two free-standing cast-iron columns, with moulded bases and capitals from the 13th century, supporting a recessed street shopfront. This shopfront has carved single-pane windows on either side of a double door with a glazed panel above a fielded panel, along with painted stone end-piers extending through the street and Row levels. Cast-iron spearhead railings and two columns define the Row-front, with responding elements against the end-piers. A sloped stallboard, 2.1 meters deep, is covered and has painted stone end-walls. A covered walkway extends along the Row. A chamfered cross-beam likely dates to the early 18th century, situated above the rear of the stallboard. The front shopfront is modern and of no particular architectural interest. A moulded bressumer sits above the Row opening. The third and fourth stories have rusticated quoins made from painted stone.

The windows are probably in 18th-century openings, but feature mid-19th-century Jacobethan embellishments: stone sills, long-and-short work jambs and cornices are topped with strapwork. The third story has two six-pane sashes, the fourth story has a broad window with three nine-pane sashes, all recessed. A moulded parapet sits beneath a shaped central gable, displaying the Chester City arms on a Jacobethan cartouche, flanked by panelled stone pilasters on each side. Moulded stone coping completes the gable and parapets.

The street and Row shop interiors have lined surfaces and no visible historic features. The third-story room, divided by a modern partition, has a sub-panel and architrave framing each window, a fireplace on the west wall, and a ceiling that was originally of three panels but is now divided into two. This ceiling retains cross-beams with moulded arrises and cornices. The rear room contains a blocked corner fireplace with a stone hearth, a chamfered beam stopped to the west and covered to the east, and a twelve-pane sash window. An early 18th-century open-well staircase connects the third and fourth stories, featuring a closed string, capped square newels, two stout barleysugar balusters per step, and a moulded rail of early 18th-century design.

The rear wing, likely once a separate dwelling, has twelve-pane sashes. The fourth-story front room displays a single panel beneath the broad window and has a replaced fireplace in a corner. The second room, lit by a skylight, features a two-panel door to the outer face with four battens and a middle stile, hanging on old long hinges. The back room in the main block has a corner fireplace with a moulded sandstone mantel. A closet has a two-panel door. The rear wing has a six-panel door and a nine-pane sash, while the stair has a sixteen-pane sash.