Number 35 Street

CHESTER CITY (IM)

SJ4066SE ST WERBURGH STREET 595-1/4/352 (East side) 23/05/67 Nos.2-18 (Even) (Formerly Listed as: EASTGATE STREET No.35) (Formerly Listed as: ST WERBURGH STREET Nos.2-18 (Even) Martin's Bank (2) Martin's Bank Chambers (4))

GV II*

Includes: No.35 Street EASTGATE STREET AND ROW. Terrace of bank, 7 shops and offices. 1895-9. By John Douglas as architect and developer. Yellow sandstone and plaster-panelled timber framing; stone was intended throughout, but changed to timber frame at request of the first Duke of Westminster; green Westmorland slate roof. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys plus part attic; one bay to Eastgate Street and 9 bays to St Werburgh Street. The bank comprising No.35 Eastgate Street and Nos 2 & 4 St Werburgh Street has stone first storey on polished granite plinth; double 9-panel doors in moulded basket archway to street corner, with corbelled head of 3 cusped ogee arches dated 1897; a basket-arched 4-light mullioned and transomed window with carved spandrels and shields to Eastgate Street; 3 similar windows followed by 2 of 3 lights and a 3-panel oak secondary door to St Werburgh Street; a shield bearing a grasshopper and an eagle with olive leaf. The 7 shopfronts to St Werburgh Street have sandstone piers; No.8 has a probably original carved stall-riser. The second storey is small-framed, all windows having mullions, transoms and leaded glazing: a 5-light oriel to Eastgate Street; a 4-light corner oriel on a stone corbel; casements varying between each bay, including some oriels, to St Werburgh Street; every main framing element is decorated; 10 saints in niches; Nos 6 & 8 St Werburgh Street are in Jacobean Ionic style. The third storey is jettied, with mullioned windows varied between bays; a broad shallow oriel to No.4 St Werburgh Street and a large jettied tourelle oriel at the corner of No.18. A gable to Eastgate Street; 4 dormer gables, 6 full gables and a dormer gable to St Werburgh Street; an octagonal spire with weather-vane on a lead finial over the tourelle.

The roof attic set back over Nos 2 & 4 St Werburgh Street has leaded casements under a continuous dormer roof. Ridge chimneys of varied shape, some spirally moulded. One of several building groups where Douglas was both architect and developer, he stated that he undertook this development to ensure that its design was suited to the prominent site adjacent to the Cathedral. INTERIORS, which could not be inspected systematically, retain some original features. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Hubbard E: Cheshire: Harmondsworth: 1971-: 162).

Listing NGR: SJ4065366358