Number 57 Street Numbers 63 And 65 Row

NUMBER 57 STREET AND NUMBERS 63 AND 65 ROW, CHESTER

This is a Grade II* listed undercroft and town house, later converted to shop and storage use, situated on Bridge Street and Row in Chester. The building is of medieval origin, not closely dateable, with substantial alterations and additions from the 17th century onwards, and further modifications in the early 19th and 20th centuries.

The exterior is constructed of sandstone with some timber framing and brick. The building comprises four storeys including an undercroft and Row level, with a single bay. The street frontage features a mid-20th-century shopfront executed in simplified early 20th-century manner. Access to the Row is via eleven sandstone steps, four of which have been repaired. The Row front is enclosed by a cast-iron railing with circlets set in the double bottom rail, stick balusters and a castellated pattern between paired top rails. Timber-cased end-posts flank a cast-iron Roman Doric central column. A covered sloped stallboard extends 2.21 metres from front to back. The flagged Row walk is lined by a simple shopfront with an added security blind to the entrance and a plaster ceiling. Behind a timber fascia and cornice, the Row-top bressumer is constructed of Flemish bond brown brickwork with pale headers above.

The upper storeys each feature two recessed sashes, now containing four panes, with painted stone sills and wedge lintels. A full cornice and low parapet of painted stone crown the building. The roof is not visible.

The undercroft shop on the street frontage has surfaces now covered, and cross-beams have been boxed in. From the rear, a sandstone passage leads to a medieval rear undercroft measuring 3.7 metres wide and 3.47 metres front to back. The west wall represents the former rear wall of the medieval front undercroft, with masonry visible south of the doorway. A cupboard recess is set into the west wall. A roughly chamfered oak beam against the north wall is probably of 17th-century date.

The Row shop is lined but retains a doorway to the south passage, which features a stop-chamfered cross-beam and other indications of 17th-century timber framing. A dogleg stair with closed string, turned newel and stick balusters leads to the third storey.

The chamber above the Row contains substantial skirting, a dado rail, two panels beneath each window, splayed jambs and broad architraves. A probably cast-iron fireplace, painted, features Corinthian-derived fluted pilasters and a frieze beneath the mantel decorated with vine leaves in seven round-arched panels. The ceiling features a plaster cornice above a simple frieze and a plaster rose.

The second and third rooms on this floor have 6-panel doors. The third room contains a simple Classical timber corner fireplace and a 2-panel door on H hinges to a small cupboard with architraves, and a larger cupboard with a door of three broad boards. A panel of wattle is displayed in the passage wall, and a closet cupboard is present.

The fourth room features a door of four fielded panels on HL hinges and a round-arched cast-iron grate set within a 19th-century wood fireplace with stop-chamfered pilasters carrying a moulded mantel on acanthus brackets. The back room could not be inspected.

A closed-string dogleg stair with turned newels, two stick balusters per step and swept rail ascends to the fourth storey. The front room on this level, now divided, contains a 4-panel door and a simple corner fireplace in its south section. The second room contains no notable features. The third room has a 6-panel door, a cupboard door of three broad boards and a 16-pane flush sash. The door to the back wing is of later 19th-century date, with 3, 2, 3, 2 panels. The back room features a 6-panel door and a flush sash.