Description

CHESTER CITY (IM)

SJ4066SE EASTGATE STREET AND ROW
595-1/4/173 (South side)
No.12 Street and No.12 Row

GV II

Undercroft shop, Row shop and ancillary accommodation. On site
of a former town house which had a C13-14 two-bay vaulted
undercroft, destroyed 1861 when rebuilt by G Williams of
Liverpool for Messrs Beckett and Co., drapers. Timber-framed
front with plaster panels; some sandstone; brick to rear;
banded tile roof with front gable abutting ridge parallel with
street.
EXTERIOR: undercroft, tall Row, third and fourth storeys and
attic. Central flight of 10 sandstone steps to the Row with,
to each side, a sandstone crosswall and a modern shopfront,
with 9 steps down to undercroft. Painted stone end-piers
matching those to No.10 Street (qv). Ornate quatrefoil-in
circle cast-iron railing to Row front and sides; ornamented
timber post above each side of steps; stepped and slightly
sloped stallboard 1.82m from front to back; faded gilt sign on
inner face of east end-pier SILKS, DRESS FABRICS, LINEN,
HOSIERY, GLOVES, FURS, GARNITURES, ARTICLES DE PARIS; terrazzo
Row walk, damaged, with mosaic border; modern shopfront of no
interest; patterned quadrant brackets to Row-top bressumer.
The third storey has a row of panels, largely hidden by
nameboard, between bressumer and a continuous window of 3;2;3
two-pane lights punctuated by a colonnette above each Row post
and paired colonnettes at ends; the window has a St Andrew's
cross, with a trefoil in each triangle, above each light; the
surfaces of the colonnettes are latticed, with capitals of C14
form. Brackets over the colonnettes carry the fourth storey
jetty-beam with ornate stopped chamfers; a row of 16
quatrefoil panels; four 2-pane sashes flanked by panels with
criss-cross bracing, between 2 small corner-balconies with
square posts and handrails on turned balusters. The ornate
jettied front gable has hollow-lozenge, St Andrew's cross and
rectangular small-framing, possibly false, marked and painted
in the plaster; 3 spirally-moulded colonnettes under a
mullioned window of four 2-pane sashes on a jettied sill-beam;
ornate head-beam, cusped bargeboards, end finials and central
drop-finial.
INTERIOR: the undercroft surfaces are covered in textured
plaster, but suggest that the sandstone sidewalls of the
medieval undercroft may in part survive. The Row shop has a
central row of cast-iron debased Doric columns carrying a

longitudinal cast-iron II beam. There is noted to be an ornate
cast-iron spiral stair, now concealed. The third storey
contains a row of 5 cast-iron columns, approximately
Corinthian. The upper storeys retain door architraves and
small-pane rear sash windows. The part of the east side of
No.10 Street visible from the fourth floor balcony of No.12
indicates that No.12 postdates No.10.
HISTORICAL NOTE: G Williams, the architect of this item is
probably the George Williams who designed No.33 Eastgate
Street (qv), now National Westminster Bank, in Classical style
1859-60.
(Journal of Chester Archaeological Society: Old Series:
Chester: 1858-1864: 410).

Listing NGR: SJ4056866274

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26656842

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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  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)