Listed Building: NUMBER 55 STREET | NUMBER 61 ROW (1376103)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4066SE BRIDGE STREET AND ROW 595-1/4/76 (East side) 10/01/72 No.55 Street and No.61 Row (Formerly Listed as: BRIDGE STREET No.55 Street & No.61 Row) GV II Undercroft and town house, then undercroft shop and commercial art gallery, now undercroft shop and 2 storey Row shop. The undercroft is probably late C18, the Row and third storey 1889 probably by Thomas Edwards, formerly in practice at No.7, St Werburgh Street (not included) as Kelly and Edwards, for David Sherratt and, as freeholder, the first Duke of Westminster. Brick and sandstone undercroft; timber-framed front with plaster panels; brick side walls; brown tile roof, ridge at right angle to street. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys, expressed as 4; one bay. The undercroft has a modern shopfront between fluted pilasters with carved foliar bases. The front of the Row and upper storeys is richly ornamented. 9 sandstone steps to the Row, north; heavy timber rail to Row front and return on moulded rectangular balusters; the sandstone upper parts of the end-piers have griffin capitals; 2 intermediate posts with linenfold reeding; sloped boarded stallboard 2.23m from front to back; shopfront has incised patterns in end pilasters; recessed central door has fielded base-panel; moulded frames to wing and front windows; fascia with shaped brackets; timber-framed plaster panels to ceiling; stopped moulded chamfers to Row-top bressumer on ornate brackets; the central pair of brackets form an arch inscribed SHERRATT & CO in raised capitals. The third storey is expressed externally as 2 storeys. The slightly jettied sole-plate to the "third" storey is inscribed .TO.GOD.MY.KING.AND.COUNTRY. The 8 arched panels above contain reliefs inscribed: and departed into Egypt; in whom I am well pleased; SUZANNA and the Elders; Joseph and his Mistress; I call for my friends; Cain and Abel; Jeremiah; praise him on the harpe. Above the 6 central panels 5 moulded brackets support a pair of 4-light mullioned and transomed leaded oriels separated by a round-arched niche holding a life-size statue of a King Charles I with sword, gold orb, sceptre and crown; the middle rail to each side of the oriels has an ornate panel below and above. The ornate jetty beam to the "fourth" storey, on carved end-brackets, is inscribed ART GALLERY; a row of 10 ornate panels; a 5-light mullioned and transomed casement with pictorial leaded glazing has 3 panels to each side, each with 2 slightly S-curved herringbone struts; a large and splendid wrought-iron hanging sign dated 1889 bears a shield, now blank. The cove-jettied gable has 4 brackets, each resting on a spiral-moulded colonnette; that on the south corner-post is gone. The framing to the gable, thinner than that below, has square panels with quadrant braces; carved bargeboards and shaped finial; lateral chimney set back, south. INTERIOR: the extent to which the 1889 design of the interior of the Row and third storey remains visible is unusual, for Chester. 4 visible beams in the undercroft shop and the lower part of the side walls are probably C18. The Row storey forms 2 chambers of the former gallery, linked through a depressed plastered archway; the rear chamber has a hipped plaster ceiling with a lantern of 5 lights to west and east and 3 lights to north and south, with former tinted chequerboard leaded glazing remaining in 8 lights; the front chamber has a substantial stair to the upper storey of 2 closed-string flights with heavy turned newels, covered steps, 2 turned balusters per step and heavy moulded rail; front windows as described for the exterior; a 2-light window with slender mullion, rounded corners and lattice leaded panes to the stair, with 2 similar but smaller and round-arched, windows above; the north wall is plain, the south wall has 3 simple piers; 3 cased trusses on Gothic-moulded corbels; a 6-pane ridge-light over the second bay and a south light over the third bay. HISTORICAL NOTE: "The Surveyor submitted plans of a new front and alterations at Mr Sherratts, Bridge Street Row, prepared by Mr Edwards, Architect." (Improvement Committee Minutes: Chester City Council: 18/9/1889). Listing NGR: SJ4057566136