Description

This list entry was subjected to a Minor Enhancement 10 December 2024 to Update Name, Address and Details, add Selected Sources and reformat the text to current standards

SJ4066SE
595-1/4/279

CHESTER CITY (IM)
NORTHGATE STREET
Nos 11 and 13

(Formerly Listed as NORTHGATE STREET AND ROW (West side) Nos.11 & 13 Street, previously listed as: NORTHGATE STREET (West side) Nos 11 & 13 Row)

10/01/72

GV
II

11 and 13 Northgate Street was built in 1900 as a shop of two bays as part of the reconstruction of a group of buildings known as ‘Shoemakers’ Row’ (3 to 31 Northgate Street) between 1897 and 1909. The redevelopment of the Row was prompted by concerns over insanitary conditions in the congested Northgate area, alongside a renewed interest in the vernacular style, and was carried out as part of a municipal road widening project at the end of the C19. 11 and 13 Northgate Street was designed by the architect, John Douglas of Douglas and Minshull, in the Vernacular Revival style. Douglas (1830-1911) was prolific across the region and known for his ‘Old English’ style of half-timbered domestic work and he also developed the adjacent building (9 Northgate Street) as well as acting as architect on several other buildings in the Shoemakers’ Row redevelopment. The building was purchased by the Chester Corporation in 1897 and was redeveloped for JF Denson and Sons, drapers. The work lowered the ‘Row’ element of the buildings to just above street level and although the medieval undercrofts survive, they are now below the street level and operate as cellars. There have been some later alterations, which include the extension of the ground-floor shop into 9 Northgate Street. The building is of cast iron and timber framing with plaster panels, and a grey-green slate roof.

EXTERIOR: the building is of two storeys with an undercroft (now cellar). There is a rear wing that is partly of three storeys with a cellar and attic.

The Row is two steps above the level of the pavement and is probably lower than the medieval Row storey. It has a two-bay arcade of hollow posts, with fronts carved in a late-C16 to C17 style. These conceal cast-iron or steel columns on red sandstone bases that carry non-structural richly-carved segmental arches of timber on carved brackets. The fascia to the bressumer has a carved cornice.

The upper storey has a row of decorative timber-framed panels beneath a seven-light bowed oriel window to each bay, flanked by a pair of lights to the right and left. All the windows have moulded mullions and transoms and leaded glazing, and each oriel has a richly carved open-work skirt beneath the jettied gables and to the base. Each gable has two rows of ornate quatrefoil panels and carved bargeboards and is supported on console brackets. The taller rear wing has a single slate-hung gable.

The rear of the building is brick with plain, slightly recessed wooden casement windows.

INTERIOR: there are sandstone medieval undercrofts, now cellars; that to number 11 has a rectangular central pier and a former passageway providing access either to the rear or an upper storey. The Row-level interior has moulded cast-iron columns. The upper storey has an open sales floor with a full-width panelled-plaster barrel-vault and rooflights in canted rectangular wells.

Listing NGR: SJ4051766350

External Links

• Wikidata Q96278298

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

• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)