Number 2 Row Number 4 Street

4 Eastgate Street and 2 Eastgate Row South, Chester

This building was constructed in the late 19th century as an undercroft and Row shop with accommodation above, built on the site of an earlier undercroft, Row and townhouse. It was rebuilt in 1888 in an opulent Vernacular Revival style for Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, the first Duke of Westminster, who was a landowner, property developer, and MP for Chester. The architect Thomas Meakin Lockwood, who had established a practice in Chester in the 1860s and came to dominate the city's architectural scene towards the end of the 19th century, designed this building alongside the adjoining corner building of 1 Bridge Street, 1 Bridge Street Row East and 2 Eastgate Street in the same Vernacular Revival style, which he had adopted for several projects along Bridge Street. The Wrexham jeweller Walton's moved into the adjacent shop at 2 Eastgate Street and 1 Bridge Street in 1909 and expanded into 4 Eastgate Street in 1935, occupying the two undercroft shops until the company closed in 2021. The building is constructed of sandstone and timber framing with a brown tile roof and terracotta ridge tiles. It is now an undercroft shop and Row shop in separate occupancy, with ancillary uses above.

The building is of four storeys, including an undercroft and Row, plus attics. The street level has a reworked shopfront to the undercroft, which is now entered from 2 Eastgate Street. It comprises two windows of three panes above panelled stallrisers. Red sandstone end piers rise through the undercroft and Row storeys.

The Row level has turned timber balusters and a moulded rail to the front opening, a sloped boarded stallboard measuring 1.65 metres from front to back between stone-banded brick cross-walls, and a boarded Row walkway. The shopfront to the Row is original, with a recessed glazed door and showcase to its east side, and a mullioned and transomed shop window to the west between reverse-taper carved pilasters. The main window has four panes to the front and one pane adjacent to the entrance on panelled stallrisers. Above the window is a frieze and dentilated cornice. There is a further short shop window at the west end of the front, which has now been incorporated into 1 Bridge Street Row South. Above the Row walkway and stallboard are carved cross beams on console brackets and stop-chamfered joists to a plaster ceiling. The classical capitals to the end piers carry mask corbels, supporting the carved and stop-chamfered bressumer above the Row opening.

The third storey has a pair of console brackets on the front of each end pier, and three secondary and eight pairs of tertiary brackets from the bressumer to the carved jetty beam. Above this is a row of panels with two coats of arms beneath a continuous window comprising two transomed lights under round arches on richly carved herms, flanked by five-light mullioned and transomed oriel windows. The oriel windows are supported on ornate brackets and have a carved panel frieze. The key of each central arch and a console bracket at each end of the elevation support the carved fourth-storey jetty beam, which is dated 1888.

The fourth storey has richly ornamented small-framing beneath and to each side of a five-light mullioned and transomed casement window. Four console brackets on herms carry a cove-jettied front gable, which has two pargeted panels beneath a three-light mullioned casement window. The gable has small-framing to each side of the window and close-studding above it, with bargeboards and a shaped finial. All the upper storey windows have patterned leaded glazing.

The west elevation rises above 2 Eastgate Row and 1 Bridge Street Row South, which is by the same architect. The fourth storey and end-gable are expressed in the same way as the front, but with a prominent shaped sandstone gable chimney.

Internally, the surfaces in the street-level shop are covered. The Row-level shop has an 1888 corner fireplace and a good ornate late-19th-century cast-iron spiral stair, and there are some features in the third and fourth storeys. The roof structure is visible in the attic.