Seven Steps, Butchers Shop And Teal Cottage

This is a row of three early 18th-century houses built before 1732 for the Mostyn Estate, altered in the 19th century. They were constructed to provide accommodation for passengers and traders using Parkgate's busy port.

Materials and Construction

The buildings are constructed of red brick with possible stone dressings, now covered in pebble dash. Earlier render with incised lines imitating ashlar remains exposed on the front wall and visible on the gable. The front slopes have slate roofs, while the rear slopes are covered in green tiles. Gable copings feature wide stacks that straddle the ridge at each end of the Butchers Shop and to the left of Seven Steps.

Seven Steps

This property rises three storeys over a cellar and is one bay wide. Six stone steps are built against the wall, though the bottom step is now obscured by the raised street level. The steps have a plain handrail leading to the raised ground floor. The 20th-century front door sits in a flush surround, and 20th-century fenestration in the rebuilt walling copies the original arrangement. At the rear, almost square windows to the first floor and under the eaves suggest the original early 18th-century window design. A single-storey additional range extends at the rear.

Interior of Seven Steps

The entrance is a lobby entry onto the side of a full-width fireplace with a mantel beam. Longitudinal ceiling beams run throughout, chamfered and with exposed roughly finished joists. Above the lobby entrance, a cupboard door bears scratched initials: 'AL', 'HI', 'W', and 'HE'. A plastered ceiling panel deeper than the joists indicates the position of the apron in front of the upper floor (painted room) fireplace. A small rear room contains a corner fireplace and scored lines on the ceiling beam. The present cellar entrance is through a trap door in this room's floor.

The cellar contains brick debris from the demolished front wall. Its floor is supported by a brick wall on the line dividing the front and rear rooms, with two reused longitudinal beams supporting the front room floor and a cross-beam supporting the ground floor hearth structure.

From the ground floor front room, full-height timber winder stairs have associated timber-framed partitions and fielded panelling. Doors feature either four fielded panels or plank construction, with H-hinges and original latches.

The first floor front room is screened from the stairs by a timber-framed partition with a horizontal rail and four-panelled door. Within this room, remarkable painted wall decoration continues the line of the timber rail of the partition as a dado band with panelling below and open views above.

The chimney wall has a fireplace with a cast-iron hob grate of mid-18th-century type, the cheeks displaying a rococo motif of a globe with plumes and pineapple. Painted decoration on the chimney breast includes a black frame to the fireplace, cream Delft tiles with figures, buildings and trees in blue, a dado panel to the left, and a shelf scar with a band of blue and a row of silhouettes of bushes and trees rising to ceiling level. There is also a row of scratched outlines of sailing boats. The recess to the left of the chimney stack lost its painting when the front (south-west) wall was rebuilt.

The north-east wall (the brick spine wall of the house) has painting carried up between the joists. Brush strokes of blue and grey are visible for the background landscape. A tall tree in the centre foreground appears to have been clipped into three tiers, and a second tree is cone-shaped. Two delicate branching plants flank the centre tree.

The south-east wall (party wall with Butchers Shop) carries a view of a wooded estuary: a bridge over a stream to a small island, two giant trees, an orchard or distant woodland beyond, and a hill in the background. To the left, a sailing ship moves out to sea, towing a small boat with a low headland to the left. Trees on the right complete the scene, though the remainder of the painting was lost in the rebuilding of the front wall.

Small attic rooms retain original board doors and partitioning.

The Butchers Shop

This property rises three storeys over a cellar and is two and a half bays wide. Four steps in a straight flight lead to a six-panel door in a flush wood frame positioned far right.

On the ground floor, the left side features a small lead-roofed canted bay window with timber mullions and four-pane sash, while the centre has a wider 20th-century plate-glass shop bay window. The first and second floors have recessed four-pane sashes, with paired dormers to the attic storey.

At the rear, a board door sits to the left. Two low first-floor windows have 20th-century frames, possibly in original openings, and a narrow attic window sits under the eaves. A 20th-century single-storey block has been added. The right return shows a small blocked ground floor window to the left.

The interior was not inspected but was reported in September 1999 to contain chamfered spine beams, an original staircase with turned balusters and 19th-century stick balusters, and one late 19th-century fireplace.

Teal Cottage

This property rises three storeys over a cellar and is one bay wide, forming the left end bay of the four-bay block comprising Teal Cottage, Seven Steps, and Butchers Shop, all of one build.

Six steps against the wall, with a 20th-century handrail, lead to a flush 20th-century front door on the left. A blocked cellar window is visible beneath the render at the foot of the steps. 20th-century plate glass sash-style frames feature throughout, with the top storey in a narrow half-dormer with a gabled roof.

At the rear, 20th-century window frames sit in probably original early 18th-century openings to the attic storey, while the first floor window is taller. A 20th-century single-storey range has been added.

Interior of Teal Cottage

The entrance is a lobby entry onto the side of a deep fireplace with an exposed mantel beam across the full width of the room. A chamfered spine beam and exposed joists are visible. A small rear room contains a probably later 18th-century corner fireplace with a 20th-century grate. Original joinery includes doors, partitions, and a full-height winder stair. Original ironwork survives, including strap hinges and latches. There is no access to the cellar.

Historical Context

Parkgate village is thought to have developed as an anchorage in the late 17th century by Sir Thomas Mostyn, who had lead mining interests in north Wales. By 1710, Park Gate had become one of the principal ports of embarkation for passengers to Ireland, with the anchorage used by packets and the Royal Yachts, the official vessels of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The Mostyn Estate map of 1732 shows the row of three houses clearly, with ships anchored close to the shore.

By 1740, the London Lead Company shipped lead from their smelting mills at Bagillt across the estuary to Parkgate. Extensive 18th-century records document the movement of goods and people through the port to Dublin, identifying Irish farm workers, vagrants being returned to their parish under Poor Law regulations, Handel on his way to the first performance of the Messiah, and John Wesley.

By the late 18th century, there was a shipbuilding yard in the town, and five 'Captains in the Dublin trade' are recorded in the Chester Directory in 1782, with the town described as 'the resort of elegance and fashion'. The port closed in the early 19th century as the Dee estuary silted up and Liverpool was preferred as a deep-water port, and better roads were built to Holyhead. The town continued as a popular holiday resort during the 19th century.

The construction of this row of three houses is thought to have been to provide accommodation for passengers and traders using the port. The wide frontage of the Butchers Shop suggests a permanent residence, and its early 19th-century recorded use as a slaughterhouse, continuing into the 20th century, reflects the continuing trade in cattle and leather. The wall paintings discovered in 1999 in what would have been the principal living room of Seven Steps reflect the popularity of Dutch interior decoration, while the deliberate use of scenic views in a trompe l'oeil style would have distracted those waiting long hours to catch a boat.