Description

SJ4066SE
595-1/4/41
10/01/72

CHESTER CITY (IM)
BRIDGE STREET AND ROW
(West side)

No.20 Street and Nos.16 & 18 Row

(Formerly Listed as: BRIDGE STREET No.20 Street & Nos. 16 & 18 Row (The Plane Tree))

II

GV

Shop and accommodation, now shop and office, probably on site
of 2 former undercrofts and town houses. 1873. By TM Lockwood
who, as usual in his work, retained no elements of the
previous building. Brick, timber framing with painted brick
and plaster panels; half-hipped red clay tile roof;
symmetrical front, a pastiche.
EXTERIOR: shopfront of hard stone tiles, probably 1930s, has
Art Deco vent and later door and window; flight of 12 steep
steps south of shopfront to Row. The Row front has heavy
turned balusters and timber rail; cast-iron rail between steps
and stallboard; the stallboard is approx 3m from front to
back; stone pier at each end backed by brickwork; 2
intermediate moulded octagonal posts; continuous
stop-chamfered joists over stallboard and Row walk; painted
brick wall to rear of Row has 3 blocked top-lights to street
level shop, recessed porch with 3 steps and door of 2 short, 2
long and 2 short panels with 3-pane overlight; three windows
of 2 1-pane lights with colonnette mullions, transom and 4
upper panes, 2 windows being north of the porch and one,
narrower, south; framed and boarded passage door, south, with
one step; brick relieving arches at each end over Row. Above
the Row front a deep bressumer carries a jetty-beam on
brackets; wrought-iron sign-bracket. The third and fourth
storeys are expressed in 3 bays, the projecting central bay
capped by a gable and the side bays small-framed. The third
storey has a central canted 5-light oriel with convex pargeted
sub-panels flanked by a cross-window in each side-bay. The
fourth storey is jettied; the central bay has a timber balcony
on shaped brackets with balusters and ornate corner-posts
supporting the gable, before 2 cross-windows; each side-bay
has a mullioned 2-light casement. The third and fourth storey
windows retain shaped leaded stained glazing in upper lights
but the former rectangular leaded panes in lower lights are
removed. The gable has a coved jetty, herringbone struts,
arched bargeboards and weather vane. Above the adjoining
properties, the sidewalls are small-framed; a shaped brick

chimney at each end.
INTERIOR: at street level the shop and cafe has a row of 5
probably timber Delian columns; some plaster mouldings to
beams and cornices. The Row and upper storeys, a solicitor's
office, could not be inspected thoroughly; the open-well stair
to the third storey is covered and probably altered; the
internal doors are covered; some moulded cornices; the former
main stair to the fourth storey is removed, now a light-well;
an 1873 secondary stair to the fourth storey.
(Chester Rows Research Project: Harris R: Archive, Bridge
Street West: 1989-).

Listing NGR: SJ 40519 66227

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26656742

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

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  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
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  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
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  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
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  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)