Listed Building: NUMBERS 32 AND 34 STREET THE OLD MUSIC HALL (1376350)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4066SE NORTHGATE STREET AND ROW 595-1/4/313 (East side) 28/07/55 Nos.32 & 34 Street (The Old Music Hall) (Formerly Listed as: ST WERBURGH STREET (West side) The Music Hall) GV II 2 shops, one to Northgate Street and the other back-to-back, to St Werburgh Street. Except for the modern frontage to Northgate Street, the building was originally the Chapel of St Nicholas, c1300 for Simon de Albo, abbot of St Werburgh's, Chester; used for a period as the church of the parish of St Oswald; closed as a church and conveyed to the Mayor and Assembly of Chester 1488; altered, with an upper floor inserted, as Commonhall and Wool Hall 1545; used for staging plays from c1750; converted as the New Theatre 1773 and the Theatre Royal 1777-8; converted as hall for concerts and entertainments by James Harrison as the Music Hall 1854-5; used as a cinema mid C20; converted to supermarket, then shops, later C20. Red squared rubble sandstone and English garden wall bond brown brick walling; grey slate gabled roofs. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. The medieval sandstone walls of the former chapel rise 24 feet, raised a further 15 feet in 18 inch brickwork for the theatre 1773; the west wall, now within Nos 32 & 34 Northgate Street, is covered from view. The former nave had 5 bays, of which the eastern 3 on the south side are visible from Music Hall Passage, and 4 bays on the north side, all but one hidden from public view, can be seen from the rear fire stair from No.40 Northgate Street (not included). The basket-arched window openings are blocked in sandstone, with badly eroded mouldings to jambs and arches visible; 4 blocked openings remain on the north side, and 2 on the south side where the east bay is largely rebuilt and the adjoining bay altered. The upper wall of each side has bricked-up window openings of Georgian proportions with cambered brick heads and, on the north side, sandstone sills. The former chancel, now of one bay, is recessed; the masonry is not toothed-in to the east of the nave; it has a blocked window, under a 2-centred arch, to each side. For conversion to the Music Hall, Harrison added the canted east porch with central doorway and a square-headed window of 2 trefoil-headed lights in each oblique face; hoodmoulds and a moulded stringcourse carried up over the door and window opening. Harrison inserted 2 windows similar to those in the porch in the east wall of the chancel above, and at a higher level a mullioned and transomed 3-light window. The face of Nos 32 & 34 to Northgate Street is of no quality or interest. INTERIOR: all surfaces are covered, but the outer walls and the Music Hall roof are probably intact; some plasterwork is said to survive, though inaccessible. The interior of the Music Hall is illustrated in Transactions of the Chester Archaeological Society. (Cheshire Sites and Monuments Record: Record for Chester City: Chester: 3007/3/15; Blomfield C: Transactions of the Chester Society of Archaeologists: Chester: 1854-1857: 251-263). Listing NGR: SJ4054166387