Listed Building: NUMBER 43 STREET | NUMBER 49 ROW (1376089)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4066SE BRIDGE STREET AND ROW 595-1/4/72 (East side) 28/07/55 No.43 Street and No.49 Row (Formerly Listed as: BRIDGE STREET No.43 Street & No.49 Row) GV II* Undercroft and town house, then undercroft shop and parsonage, now undercroft shop and Row shop. Rebuilt probably mid C17, bequeathed 1659 by Lettice Whitley to St Michael's Parish, altered early C18, sold 1907 to Crawford, antique dealer, and altered internally by him; restored late C20. Timber frame with plaster panels; grey slate roof, ridge at right-angle to street. EXTERIOR: 4 storeys including undercroft and Row; one narrow bay. A modern shopfront to the street covers the undercroft structure. Continuous oak corner-posts through Row and third storeys; oak Row-front rail on turned balusters; level boarded stallboard 2.02m from front to back; flagged Row walk; the shopfront in early C20 manner has recessed central entrance and windows with slender moulded sides and rounded top corners with carved spandrels; consoles on corner-posts carry an ovolo bressumer, with a parallel chamfered cross-beam behind; exposed joists; an altered rear beam. The small-framed third storey has a row of 5 ornamented panels, a rail with strapwork pattern, a 3-light mullioned and transomed leaded casement with 2 superimposed panels to each side and a patterned rail. The mildly jettied fourth storey has a row of 6 small panels, a small leaded 3-light casement with a pair of panels to each side, a simple queen post gable, patterned bargeboards and a sloped finial. A lateral chimney set back, south. INTERIOR: the undercroft is lined; 5 roughly chamfered squared beams towards the rear partly visible, C17 or earlier. In the Row and upper storeys C17 features include the front wall, the former rear wall now forming an internal cross-wall, a fine but incomplete moulded plaster ceiling and the form of the galleried hall open to the roof. The principal C18 feature is the stair to the third storey which rises into the largely C20 rear extension which probably replaces a Georgian wing. Reordering of the interior, difficult to identify completely, was undertaken by Crawford shortly after 1907. The Row storey is largely lined, but has part of a C17 plaster ceiling and the early C18 oak newel stair of one flight to the third storey, with closed string, 2 barleysugar balusters per step and heavy moulded rail. The former rear wall to the third storey bridges the front of the stair-well. It has a 6-light mullioned and transomed leaded casement, perhaps curtailed to accommodate the doorway to the hall, south. Beneath the casement three C19 carved panels in the manner of late Middle Ages depict stations of the Cross, probably brought in and inserted by Crawford shortly after 1907; they may be plaster casts. The hall is open to the roof, and its lower part probably elongated by the removal of a former chamber over the Row; an altered early C18 oak newel stair with barleysugar balusters leads to the north gallery; the balustrade of the east cross-landing carries 3 further stations of the Cross panels; the gallery leads to a small fourth storey front chamber; a small early C20 east office has a leaded oriel. The roof structure has 3 queen-post trusses, an inserted king-post truss, east, and purlins; at fourth storey level the former rear wall, still the rear at this level, has a large tie-beam and a 3-light leaded casement with an inserted horizontally-sliding central sash. Listing NGR: SJ4057166166