37-43, CHINA STREET

LANCASTER

SD4761NE CHINA STREET 1685-1/7/69 (East side) Nos.37-43 (Odd)

II

Terrace of 3 houses, now 4 shops. Early C18, altered in late C19. Coursed sandstone with ashlar dressings. Slate roof with gable chimney stack to the left. Each house has a double-depth front range and a rear wing, now altered. 3 storeys above cellars, and 9 bays. Photographs taken before the alterations show the building originally divided, from left to right, into properties of 2, 3 & 4 bays, with doorways in bays 2, 3 & 8. The ground floor has 4 shop fronts of c1900, each with a plate-glass window under a semicircular head, a doorway to the right, a plain fascia board and a prominent cornice supported by carved brackets, doubtless inserted after the widening of China Street in 1895. All the upper windows have moulded sills and are set into slightly projecting vertical panels, across which a band passes between the first and second storeys. Their joinery is recent. The windows on the second floor (which originally had 12-pane sashes) have plain surrounds, while those on the first floor (originally with 18-pane sashes) have jambs in the form of Tuscan pilasters without bases and stilted lintels with a projecting triple keystone. (Docton K: Lancaster as it Was: Nelson: 1973-).

Listing NGR: SD4751861757