13 And 15, Lower Bridge Street

CHESTER CITY (IM)

SJ4066SE LOWER BRIDGE STREET 595-1/4/249 (East side) 10/01/72 No.13 AND 15

GV II

Undercroft and town house, now shop and museum. Undercroft probably partly C14 altered C18 and C19; frontage probably late C17; interior from Row storey upward probably late C17, altered C18 and later. Coursed sandstone and brick undercroft; irregularly bonded brown brick front; grey slate roof, ridge parallel with front, rear portion altered. EXTERIOR: 4 storeys of one bay. Modern plate glass shopfront with end piers and fascia rendered. The upper storeys have flush piers of painted stone. One tripartite sash of 6;24;6 square panes to each upper storey with painted stone sills and gauged brick heads; a small blocked opening 10 courses high to attic; the gable parapet has a plain painted stone coping; a lateral chimney, south. The rear has a narrow rear wing, north, overlapped by a full-width outshut; a flush 12-pane sash to the third storey and a replaced window to the fourth storey of the main block, both with cambered brick heads. INTERIOR: at street level there are portions of medieval stonework of the undercrofts, repaired and altered in brick C18 and C20. Three sections are visible in No.15: the front portion of four bays is of brick with timber beams; the north and south walls of the central section have portions of medieval stonework, repaired and altered in brick; the rear portion has stone north and south walls repaired in brick, with 2 medieval cupboard recesses in the south wall, and a sandstone east wall with evidence of a medieval rear access stair. The front room at former Row level has a panelled embrasure; stair of one flight with winders at bottom has square newel, closed string, 2 substantial barleysugar balusters per step and a heavy moulded rail; the rear room has a stop-chamfered oak beam and a fireplace with carved oak surround brought in from the former Blue Post Inn. The panelled third storey front room has one square row beneath the dado rail and a tall row of panels above it, a chamfered oak cross-beam, a possibly replaced fireplace with eared architrave in a corner breast, a door of 2 long, 2 short and 2 long panels in the north wall and a door of 6 fielded panels from the landing. The second room has a blocked corner flue and 2 stop-chamfered oak cross-beams crossing also the later-partitioned landing. The third room has door of 4

panels, the upper 2 with stop-chamfered arrises. The fourth storey has stout oak beams, some repaired; the cross-beam in the front room has lambs tongue stops and mortices for joists in its upper arrises; a corner flue. (Chester Rows Research Project: Grenville J: Lower Bridge Street, East: 1988-).

Listing NGR: SJ4060266050