Number 26 Street Number 32 Row

26 Eastgate Street and 32 Eastgate Row South is an undercroft, Row and former townhouse built in the 17th century, probably on the site of an earlier building. It was altered in the early 18th century and then restored in 1858 in Vernacular Revival style by Thomas Mainwaring Penson for the local jewellers Butt and Company Ltd. Penson became a leading figure in this style, and his work can be seen elsewhere on Eastgate Street at 22 Eastgate Street and 24–28 Eastgate Row South, and at 28 Eastgate Street and 34 Eastgate Row South. This building is considered to be one of the earliest forerunners of Vernacular Revival style in Chester.

Butts Jewellers had links to the Richardson family, who established a goldsmiths in Eastgate Row in the early 18th century. Butts occupied both the undercroft and Row shops until the company was taken over by Mappin and Webb in the mid-20th century. They retained the Row shop as a jewellers until the early 21st century, with ancillary offices and storage above. The undercroft shop is now a separate retail premises.

The building is constructed of sandstone and timber-framed work with plaster panels. The west elevation is of old brown brick. It has a grey-slate roof with its ridge at right angles to Eastgate Street.

The building is of four storeys including an undercroft and Row. The undercroft has a modern shopfront to the street between two sandstone stop-chamfered end piers. These piers continue up through the Row and have half-round responds and foliar capitals at the Row storey. The Row level has Gothic cast-iron railings to the front opening and a covered sloping stallboard measuring 2.2 metres from front to back. The Row has a terrazzo walkway and a shopfront with a panelled ceiling above the stallboard and Row walk.

The third storey is carried on the Row-top bressumer, which has moulded chamfers. Above this is a row of 10 small-framed panels beneath a leaded five-light mullioned and transomed casement window with two close-stud panels to each side. Four quadrant brackets carried by angel corbels with 10 small panels between support the fourth-storey jetty beam, which has a moulded arris.

The fourth storey has a central canted three-light oriel window on a massive moulded corbel, set within an arch-braced truss. There is an S-shaped strut to each side of the oriel and chamfered corner posts. The gable has richly carved and crocketed bargeboards and a carved finial with a pendant.

The western brick elevation has a replacement three-light mullioned window and a tall lateral chimney.

The undercroft, the floor level of which is three steps down from the street, has all of its internal surfaces covered. The early-20th-century Row shop has the form of a previous galleried hall. There is an early-18th-century open-string, open-well stair to the rear with plinthed newels, three vase balusters per step, shaped brackets and a heavy swept rail, all painted. There is a 17th-century parlour above the Row, which has oak wainscot to all walls with two rows of panels beneath the dado rail, three rows of vertical proportion above, and a row of broad panels beneath an oak cornice. The parlour also has a carved oak fireplace with architraves flanked by foliar motifs and a frieze with a fine pictorial panel in relief showing old Chester and the Dee between swags. There is an oak door of two short, two long and two short fielded panels, boxed beams, and the original joists.