Number 10 Row Cowper House Number 12 Street

Number 12 Bridge Street and Number 10 Bridge Street Row West comprises a 17th-century timber-framed two-storey town house standing above an early to mid-13th-century vaulted stone undercroft. The undercroft is contemporary with the Corvisers' (Boot or Shoemakers') 'selds' (stalls or market halls), which had been recorded on the west side of the street by as early as 1270, and comprised stone undercrofts with walkways and accommodation above. The rear undercroft was rediscovered and excavated in 1839, and a door and mural stair with Number 14 Bridge Street suggest that they may have initially been in the same ownership. The timber-framed townhouse dates from the mid-17th century and is likely to be a rebuilding of an earlier building.

Bridge Street was one of the first streets to see building owners encroaching on the public highway to add shops, cellars, stairs and house 'forefronts', and there is evidence that the Row was extended over a shopfront to the undercroft that was encroaching into the street. An inscription on the bressumer reads 'TC 1664' after the building's owner, Thomas Cowper. Cowper was an ironmonger and Royalist who served as Mayor of Chester between 1641 and 1642 and who appears to have been responsible for a range of improvements to the property, including a slightly later fireplace inscribed with his initials and the date '1661' on the third floor. In the mid to late 19th century the street level shop was an ironmongers. In 1977 the undercroft and Row were converted into a bookshop, and in 2023 the whole property was in single, mixed-use occupancy with retail premises to the street level, a café to the Row and artists' studios to the upper stories and rear undercroft.

The building is of four storeys including an undercroft and Row. The undercroft has a late 20th-century shopfront to the street with a flight of 11 repaired stone steps to the north, leading up to the Row walkway. There is a brick pier north of the steps and a replaced post between the steps and the shopfront.

At Row level are posts which were formerly at each front corner of the building and which are now approximately one metre back from an encroached shopfront, with chamfered brackets and a beam. The Row opening has 19th and 20th-century shaped splat ballusters at the front of a sloping stallboard which measures approximately three metres from front to back. The side posts at the rear of the stallboard have a stop-chamfered front face and carry a chamfered beam. There are 17th-century joists over the stallboard and Row walk and two diagonal beams to the south: one is chamfered, the other has a carved face with dentils. The 20th-century Row shopfront is of wood and glass. There is a carved fascia above the Row opening.

The third storey has a seven-light mullioned and transomed leaded window of around 1870. This stands proud of the wall on console brackets and has three studs with two intermediate rails to each side. There is a lead rainwater pipe to the north, with its head inscribed P & E 1830.

The fourth storey has a strapwork carved jetty bressumer, inscribed TC (for Thomas Cowper) 1664, below a row of eight round-headed panels with central oak phalluses and arches carved as if they were voussoirs. There are two similar panels to each side of a mullioned and transomed five-light leaded casement window of approximately 1870, which is proud of the wall and carried on console brackets. The window projects up into the gable, which has an interrupted tie beam carved with vine leaves and grapes and quadrant-braced panels, carved bargeboards and a finial. There is a brick chimney.

The front undercroft has a current floor surface level two steps below the street level and is lined. There are six steps leading down through a mid-19th-century Gothic Revival style stone screen, with an archway on colonnettes and flanking windows in a 13th-century style, within a broad recessed arched panel. This opens into a six-bay quadripartite rib-vaulted rear undercroft, probably dating to 1350–75 or slightly earlier, with squared sandstone rubble walling, truncated-cone-shaped rib-corbels and deeply chamfered ribs. There is a three-light window at the west end, formerly with trefoil heads but which has been heightened, including with round heads. A trefoil archway in the fifth bay leads to a stone stair within the stone party wall with Number 14 Bridge Street. This rises backward, displaying the underside of an upper stair serving Number 14. The rear undercroft was found and excavated in 1839, when the floor level may have been lower by approximately 0.6 metres. The front undercroft is not capable of interpretation in its present form, but investigation of other undercrofts in the Rows suggests it may be earlier than the rear undercroft: it is 16 metres long and the rear undercroft is 13 metres.

The interior of the Row storey has modern finishes. The portion over the rear undercroft is raised up by three steps. The third storey has modern linings but there is a sandstone fireplace above the diagonal beams in the Row walk, inscribed TC (Thomas Cowper) 1661 to each side of a blank shield, with a substantial projecting, moulded mantel.

The attic storey has a moulded plaster cornice in the front room and 17th-century purlins and braces are discernible but boarded over. The rear undercroft is the most important visible element.