Listed Building: NUMBERS 31, 33 AND 35 STREET | NUMBERS 37 AND 39 ROW (1376077)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4066SE BRIDGE STREET AND ROW 595-1/4/66 (East side) 10/01/72 Nos.31, 33 & 35 Street and Nos.37 & 39 Row (Formerly Listed as: BRIDGE STREET St Michael's Buildings) GV II* Includes: Nos.1-18 (consec) and No.20 ST MICHAEL'S ROW. 2 undercroft shops, 2 Row shops and 20 arcade shops. 1909-11. By WT Lockwood. For the second Duke of Westminster. Faience and timber framing with plaster panels, brick and probably, steel frame; Westmorland green slate roof. EXTERIOR: 5 tall storeys; 5 gables to Bridge Street; expressed, above the Row arcade, as a symmetrical E-shaped late Elizabethan house. The faience undercroft has a broad central flight of 13 stone steps with wrought-iron rails to the Row and arcade, with, north, an ornate wrought-iron gate to the service basement and a shop doorway, both in a trabeated case with a composite central column and an entablature; next, 2 modern shopfronts in basket archways; south of the stair 2 modern shopfronts in basket archways, then a part-glazed door in a case with architrave and entablature and a flight of 12 stone steps with wrought-iron rails to the Row. A faience cornice beneath timber-clad end-piers and 4 cross-shaped intermediate posts and timber rails on shaped splat balusters to the Row front; the almost level stallboards and the Row walk are paved in terrazzo; shopfronts to each side of the arcade have recessed doors in basket arches with Art Nouveau carvings in spandrels; panelled plaster ceiling to Row; a basket arch with timber triple "keystone" above the central stair; the bays to each side have bressumers on shaped brackets; carved consoles on the post-fronts support the third-storey jetty. The upper storeys are small-framed, jettied at each storey, the central and end bays boldly and the double-width intermediate bays mildly. Moulded fascia to bressumer; the central and end bays have a shallow canted 4-light mullioned and transomed oriel to each of the third and fourth storeys, with shaped central and side panels; the intermediate bays have pairs of mullioned and transomed 4-light casements, with quadrant braces to the third storey and herringbone braces to the fourth storey. The fifth storey has a 4-light mullioned casement with herringbone struts and shaped panels to the central and end bays and canted 6-light oriels with close studding and quadrant braces to the intermediate bays; the central and end gables have close studding, the 2 intermediate gables herringbone struts; moulded bargeboards; the verges of the intermediate gables, with rafters exposed, project to the face of the central and intermediate gables; each of the latter has 3 drop finials; lateral chimneys; brick rear walls. Oriels and casements are leaded; mullions at angles of oriels form pilasters. The Row shops return to a pilastered segmental archway with "figurehead" corbels, one a female, the other a bearded male, at the entrance to the arcade; the floor is terrazzo, the walls cream faience, banded in mauve; composite pilasters on tall plinths between shopfronts with tiled stall-risers and oak frames; cornice; Atlantes between shops at upper storey; richly moulded frieze; glazed roof; The wider central part of the arcade is entered at each end through great round arches; the adjacent shopfronts are canted to open onto small side-arches; each end of the glazed roof over the front and central part of the arcade is hipped; at the far end the roof is gabled and the frieze below more sharply moulded, suggesting that it was first intended to extend the arcade, not achieved until the 1960s. Lockwood intended that this large and ambitious project should be wholly faced in faience; but his client, to whom the City Council's Improvement Committee expressed their pleasure and thanks, demurred, insisting on timber framing. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N and Hubbard E: Chester: Harmondsworth: 1971-: 166). Listing NGR: SJ4057266200