Listed Building: NUMBERS 51 AND 53 STREET | NUMBERS 59 AND 59A ROW (1376097)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4066SE BRIDGE STREET AND ROW 595-1/4/75 (East side) 24/09/90 Nos.51 & 53 Street and Nos.59 and 59A Row (Formerly Listed as: BRIDGE STREET Nos.51 & 53 Street & No.59 Row) GV II Undercroft and town house, now 2 small offices in undercroft and a shop at Row level and above with a separate shop, probably formerly a cottage, behind; on a medieval burgage plot. The earliest visible features of the existing buildings are C16 and C17, refaced to Bridge Street and partly rebuilt 1858 by James Harrison and altered C20. The mock timber framing of the front is to Vernacular Revival as Gothick is to Gothic Revival, the clearest instance of its kind in Chester. Grey slate roof, gable to front. EXTERIOR: the undercroft has a recessed central porch, triangular in plan, with an angled door to each half-width office; the north office has an end-pilaster and altered door, probably 1858; the south office has a modern front. The Row front has partly-rendered brick end-piers and simple mild-steel stick balusters and rail; sloping boarded stallboard 2.1m from front to back; flagged Row walk; C20 oak and glass shopfront; south passage to rear has replaced part-glazed door; cusped timber brackets on stone corbels carry a Row-front bressumer with chamfer moulded and stopped as on No.40 Row (qv). The third storey has a central 5-light canted oriel on a rendered corbel similarly detailed to that on No.40 Bridge Street & Row (qv); the lights have 2-pane sashes with cusped arches to heads; hipped oriel roof of slate. The timber framing is planted, with the edges of every component cusped; the centre rail to each side of the oriel has a saltire-braced panel beneath and above; the gable above the oriel has framing like an 8-spoked wheel with 2 mouchettes to each side; ornate shaped bargeboards, each cusped and pierced with 2 pairs of mouchettes; a damaged drop finial. External features of the former rear cottage are not visible. INTERIOR: the partial rebuilding in 1858 and C20 linings may conceal structural elements of C17 or earlier. The short undercroft, now divided into 2 offices, is wholly lined. At Row level timber posts in each sidewall of the southern passage, some in the north sidewall covered, show that, at least since C17, the great hall had a side gallery; surfaces at Row level within the shop are covered. At third storey level the vertical surfaces and the balustrade of the south gallery are probably 1858, with some alterations; the front chamber above the Row has an antiquarian collection of oak timbers, probably from elsewhere in the building, fixed as if timber framing, on the south wall; the floor of the chamber also forming the ceiling to the Row was probably raised in 1858; the truss above a plastered partition between chamber and hall is largely covered; over the hall the first tie-beam, now plastered, and the rear truss has an exposed cambered tie-beam and principal rafters morticed for angle braces, since removed, and a windbrace to the north purlin. Surfaces of the former rear cottage are almost wholly covered, but some visible beams and joists of oak suggest a pre-C18 origin. HISTORICAL NOTE: this building tallies with the reference to James Harrison's buildings in Bridge Street quoted from The Builder v.16 p.269, April 17 1858 "A shop in Bridge Street Row is also to have timber work characteristic of Chester in the fourteenth century. Mr Harrison is architect of both buildings." For the other building see No.40 Street and 40 Row (qv). (Chester Rows Research Project: Harrison R: Archive, Bridge Street East: 1989-; The Builder: London: 1858-: 269). Listing NGR: SJ4057166143