Number 21 Street Number 27 Row

Number 21 Watergate Street and Number 27 Row, Chester

This grade II* listed building comprises an undercroft and town house with shops. It dates from the 13th century, with significant rebuilding from the Row level upward in the mid-17th century at the rear and early 18th century at the front as shops and town house. The building has undergone internal alterations in the 20th century.

The structure features sandstone undercrofts, brown brick upper storeys with some timber framing at the rear and interior, and a grey slate roof with ridge at right angles to the front. It stands four storeys above street level, plus a deep undercroft below street level, with roof attic storage.

The exterior street frontage has a central part-glazed two-panel door with a plain shop window to its left and boarded double warehouse doors to the undercroft on the right. The Row front displays two Tuscan columns with timber rail on panelled posts and heavy turned balusters, alongside an altered Georgian shopfront featuring a boarded door on the left.

The upper storeys are constructed of brown brick in irregular Flemish bond. The third storey has raised panels beneath its windows, now replaced in simplified form. A three-course band marks the fourth storey floor level. Windows are nearly flush sashes: the third storey features a central 12-pane sash with a taller 24-pane sash on each side, while the fourth storey has a blocked central opening with a 16-pane sash on each side. Windows are set beneath plain wedge lintels of painted stone. A simple stone-coped brick parapet crowns the front elevation. The rear is brown brick in irregular bond with minimal timber framing to the main gable.

The late 13th-century undercroft features coursed sandstone rubble walls and a quadripartite vault spanning three bays with chamfered ribs on moulded corbels. The front bay is partially cut away to accommodate a deep stone-cut cellar and a self-contained shop. The main undercroft chamber has a brick floor. A later rear extension has rougher sandstone rubble walls and a probably 18th-century brick barrel-vault, its rear wall now lined with breeze-blocks.

The street-level shop contains no visible features of special interest. The Row shop has surfaces covered and a fairly modern repositioned stair to the third storey.

The front chamber of the third storey retains early 18th-century panelling with alcove cupboards and overmantel to the side walls. One row of fielded panels runs beneath the dado rail and one above, though the cornice has been removed, the front wall altered, and the rear partition removed, leaving only the corner breast with fireplace from the former inner room. Two eared architraves flank doorways, one of which is damaged. The former rear gable wall and lower rear wing feature timber framing.

An oak dogleg closed-string stair rises to the fourth storey, with square newels including a through winder-newel at the turn, two column-on-vase balusters per step, and straight rails. A similar stair continues from the fourth storey to the loft. The fourth storey doors are of two and four fielded panels, probably oak. The front chamber contains panelled window embrasures with benches. The middle room features a corner fireplace with damaged panelled overmantel.

The attic is spanned by a probably 18th-century purlin roof.