Number 20, 22 And 24 Row The Dutch Houses Number 22, 24 And 26 Street

CHESTER CITY, BRIDGE STREET

Nos 22, 24 and 26 Bridge Street and Nos 20, 22 and 24 Bridge Street Row West (The Dutch Houses)

This four-storey building, including undercroft, Row and attic levels, is a former townhouse with a Row and undercroft probably built in the late 17th century as a single dwelling and later subdivided. Although no surviving above-ground historic fabric predates the 17th century, it likely replaced earlier structures on the site. The building incorporates sandstone piers that rise through all four storeys. Architectural historian J T Smith previously suggested these might be of medieval origin, but evidence from a 1970s rebuild indicates this is unlikely.

The building was altered during the 18th and 19th centuries. From the mid-19th to early 20th century, the undercroft shops were occupied by a range of relatively upmarket tenants, reflecting increased prosperity in this part of Bridge Street by the turn of the 20th century.

Following a 1968 survey of the Chester Rows, Chester City Council purchased the property from four separate owners and undertook extensive restoration between 1973 and 1975. This work involved a complete rebuild of the façade and replacement of much of the historic timber frame with structural steel, although some internal late-17th-century features survive. The building is now constructed of sandstone, late-17th-century timber framing, late-17th or 18th-century brickwork with render, and a grey slate roof.

EXTERIOR

The undercroft level has modern shopfronts to numbers 22 and 26 Bridge Street. Number 24 has a recessed door with a large window above a pair of panels. The shopfront frame is probably cast-iron with slim colonnettes with foliar capitals and quadrant mouldings in the upper corners of the panes.

The Row front has substantial wooden painted barley-sugar balusters and rails. Those to number 20 were inserted in 1973 replacing a 19th-century cast-iron railing. Rectangular stop-chamfered sandstone piers stand at each end and between numbers 20 and 22. A thinner octagonal pillar stands between numbers 22 and 24. Sockets, now filled, indicate a former rear rail. The Row walkway paving is covered with replaced beams and a plaster ceiling over the stallboard and walkway. Two modern shopfronts occupy the Row level.

The third, fourth and attic storeys have been renewed with numerous alterations. A renewed oak fascia on brackets sits over the Row front with four painted wooden barley-sugar pilasters with quasi-Ionic capitals, renewed in part, to each of the third and fourth storeys. All windows have been renewed to a different style. Those above numbers 20 and 22 Bridge Street Row were previously sash windows.

The third storey displays two mullioned and transomed three-light leaded casement windows with top-hung top-lights to number 20 Bridge Street Row, a similar five-light casement to number 22, and a four-light casement to the front of number 24 with a transomed single-light casement to its south return. At the fourth storey floor level, a replaced oak architrave, frieze and cornice sits above a mullioned six-light leaded casement window to number 20 Bridge Street Row with alternating top-hung top-lights. A four-light mullioned and transomed leaded casement occupies number 22, and a six-light version number 24, with a single-light transomed casement in the south return. The attic storey is fronted by a replaced oak cornice and lead apron roof with three mullioned and transomed leaded casement windows with top-hung top-lights. Plain bargeboards front the three gables.

The building's rear has two gables: one to the north bay above number 20 Bridge Street Row and another to the combined middle and south bays above numbers 22 and 24 Bridge Street Row. This arrangement, together with the octagonal pillar near the front junction line, suggests that numbers 22 and 24 Bridge Street Row may have been a single tenement, possibly from the Middle Ages. Number 20 appears to be late 17th century but has been rendered with a 19th-century window. Numbers 22 and 24 are 18th century in Flemish bond with projecting bands and nine-pane, 12-pane and 16-pane sash windows.

INTERIOR

Most features at street and Row levels are covered, except for some 17th-century ceiling joists visible in number 24 Bridge Street, a 19th-century stair and some 17th-century timbers in number 22 Bridge Street Row, and 17th-century joists in number 24 Bridge Street Row.

Features in the upper storeys are largely of individual interest. The third storey contains a mid-17th-century fireplace in the north wall of the front parlour, a chamfered stone pier in the north and south walls, and probable 18th or 19th-century brickwork. The parlour extending across the fronts of numbers 22 and 24 Bridge Street Row shows the south side of the south pier in number 20 and a chamfered pier in the south wall of number 24. The column between numbers 22 and 24, immediately above a similar column in the Row, suggests the chamber always encompassed two bays. The ceiling above the bay of number 24 features a fine three-panel moulded plaster ceiling of around 1700, which was removed, restored and re-installed in 1975. A late-17th-century fireplace occupies the south wall, with another in the south wall of the rear room of number 24, which also has 17th-century oak beams.

The fourth storey contains sandstone piers and an octagonal column. As in the third storey, a 17th-century sandstone fireplace stands in the south wall of number 24 Bridge Street Row. An altered oak newel stair with two barley-sugar balusters per step rises from the third storey to the attic. The attic storey, largely clad, has a late-17th-century roof truss at the rear of the front room above number 20 Bridge Street Row and oak purlins at the rear of numbers 22 and 24.

The 1973-75 restoration is of interest as an example of methods then employed on severely dilapidated buildings.