Number 43 Street Number 49 Row

Number 43 Bridge Street and 49 Bridge Street Row East

This building is a former rectory above an undercroft and Row shops. It is thought to have been erected in the mid-17th century, probably on the site of a medieval undercroft and Row. The building was bequeathed by Lettice Whitley to St Michael's Parish on her death in 1709, to augment the stipend of the vicar and his successors in perpetuity. Whitley was associated with two of the most powerful Chester families of the mid- and later 17th century. She was the daughter of Sir Francis Gamull, Mayor and later Member of Parliament for Chester, who was an active Royalist and defended the City during the English Civil War. She also married three times, the last of whom was a younger brother of Roger Whitley, Whig Member of Parliament for Chester, sometime mayor and fierce political opponent of Thomas Grosvenor, the Tory Member of Parliament. The building was altered in the early 18th century but was used as a rectory until it was sold by the parish in 1907 to an antiques dealer who carried out internal alterations. The late-19th and early-20th century trade directories list the undercroft and Row level shops as being in separate occupation. In 1878 the undercroft was occupied by a plumber, glazier and gas fitters, becoming a grocers by 1902. The Row was a stationers in 1878 and a fancy goods dealer by 1902. The building was restored in 1975 and is timber framed with plaster panels. It has a grey slate roof with its ridge at right-angles to the street.

EXTERIOR

The narrow building is of four storeys, including an undercroft and Row. There is a modern shopfront to the street which covers the undercroft structure. The Row has an oak rail on turned balusters to the front opening, a level boarded stallboard measuring 2.02 metres from front to back, and a flagged Row walkway. There are continuous oak corner-posts through the Row and third storeys. The Row shopfront is of the early 20th century and has a recessed central entrance and windows with slender moulded sides and rounded top corners with carved spandrels. Console brackets on the corner-posts carry an ovolo bressumer above the Row. Behind this is a parallel chamfered cross-beam, exposed joists and an altered rear beam.

The small-framed third storey has a row of five ornamented panels and a rail with a strapwork pattern. There is a three-light mullioned and transomed leaded casement window with two plaster panels to each side and a patterned rail above it.

The mildly jettied fourth storey has a row of seven small panels and a small leaded three-light casement window with a pair of panels to each side. The gable displays its simple queen post structure and has patterned bargeboards and a finial. There is a lateral chimney set back to the south.

INTERIOR

The undercroft is lined but five roughly chamfered squared beams towards the rear are partly visible and are 17th century or earlier.

In the Row and upper storeys there are 17th century features including the front wall, the former rear wall, which now forms an internal cross-wall, a fine but incomplete moulded plaster ceiling and the form of a galleried hall open to the roof. The principal 18th century feature is the stair to the third storey which rises into the largely 20th century rear extension, which probably replaced a Georgian wing. The reordering of the interior, undertaken in 1907, is difficult to identify completely.

The Row storey is largely lined but has part of a 17th century plaster ceiling and an early 18th century oak newel stair of one flight up to the third storey. This has a closed string, two barley-sugar balusters per step and a heavy moulded rail.

The former rear wall to the third storey bridges the front of the stair-well. It has a six-light mullioned and transomed leaded casement window, which may have been curtailed to accommodate the doorway to the hall to the south. Beneath the casement there are three 19th century carved panels, in the manner of the late Middle Ages, which depict Stations of the Cross. These were probably brought in and inserted by Crawford shortly after 1907 and may be plaster casts. The hall is open to the roof, and its lower part was probably elongated by the removal of a former chamber over the Row. An altered early 18th century oak newel stair with barley-sugar balusters leads to the north gallery and the balustrade of the east cross-landing carries three further Stations of the Cross panels. The gallery leads to a small fourth storey front chamber and a small early 20th century east office with a leaded oriel window.

The roof structure has three queen-post trusses, an inserted king-post truss to the east and purlins. At the fourth storey level the former rear wall, which is still the rear at this level, has a large tie-beam and a three-light leaded casement window with an inserted horizontal-sliding central sash.