Number 42 Row Number 42 Street

CHESTER CITY (IM)

SJ4066SE BRIDGE STREET AND ROW 595-1/4/50 (West side) No.42 Street and No.42 Row

GV II

Undercroft and town house. Rebuilt c1720, extended to rear and refaced to Bridge Street c1860. Sandstone and brick, painted, with grey slate roof at right-angle to street. EXTERIOR: 5 storeys. The C19 rear extension was probably a separate dwelling; now an undercroft shop, a Row level shop, a third storey office and a flat in the fourth storey and attic. Wooden shopfront to street in later C19 manner has panelled end-pilasters, recessed central margin-paned door with window having a quadrant pane and a flat pane to each side. The Row front has a cast-iron rail on stick balusters; painted sandstone end-piers; narrow boarded stallboard; boarded Row walk; rendered rear wall to Row has door of 2 flush panels, 2 field panels and 2 plain panels with a 2-pane overlight in architrave; shutters on gudgeon hinges to a tripartite sash of 8; 12; 8 panes; boxed beam at each end; plain bressumer. The upper storeys are of painted brickwork; brick band at each floor; recessed sashes with moulded stone sills and cambered gauged-brick heads, a tripartite sash of 4; 8; 4 panes to the third storey and fourth storey, a 16-pane sash to the attic storey; coped gable; 2 chimneys on north wall, that towards rear of 2 builds. The long 3-storey rear wing, blank to the north, has a later one-storey lean-to-roofed outshut behind with 2 camber-arched brick-silled 9-pane windows of large scantling above; plain verge on projecting band of 3 brick courses. INTERIOR: the undercroft and Row storey display no visible features of special interest. A replaced one-flight stair to the third storey retains a shaped top newel of late C17 character; door of 6 fielded panels, the central pair being short, to the front room which has panelled walls with one row beneath the dado and one above; replaced fireplace; panelled window-shutters fold back against the wing walls; plaster cornice. The rear room has similar wall panelling and cornice and a replaced fireplace in a corner chimneybreast. The stair to the fourth storey, around a narrow stairwell, has square shaped newels of late C17 character; a closed string, 2 twisted-column-on-vase balusters per step and a softwood handrail. The fourth storey and attic could not be inspected. (Chester Rows Research Project: Harris R: Archive, Bridge Street West: 1989-).

Listing NGR: SJ4052866153