Listed Building: NUMBERS 54 AND 56 STREET (1376355)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4066SW NORTHGATE STREET AND ROW 595-1/3/317 (East side) Nos.54 & 56 Street GV II 2 town houses, probably with shops, now one shop with storage. Late C17 and early C18, but possibly earlier elements; the upper storeys re-cased 1900. English garden wall bond brown brickwork, sandstone, pebbledash, plaster and pargeting to the third and fourth storeys, green slate roof with 2 gables to the front. EXTERIOR: full cellars and 4 storeys. Shopfronts of c1900 have wood frames, leaded glazing above the transom with the City Arms of Durham, Salisbury, Newcastle, London, Chester, Carlisle and York; the windows have arched heads with art nouveau motifs carved in the spandrels; modern fascias. The second storey, of brick with flush red sandstone quoins, has 2 mullioned and transomed wood windows to the street and one to the south end, with shaped leaded glazing above the transoms; a frieze and cornice at third storey floor level; pilasters at north end and south-west corner; 2 canted oriels to the street and one to the south end rise through the third and fourth storeys; pargeted panels beneath the third storey windows to the street are inscribed ANNO DOM:MDCCCC. the south-facing window has a strapwork panel; there is a continuous pargeted band between the heads of the third storey windows and the fourth storey sills; pargeted gables on jettied collar beams above the oriels; bargeboards with moulded cornices; old brick chimney on south gable and on ridge to north; red clay ridge tiles. INTERIOR: the cellars to both former houses have walls of bedrock and sandstone, with some brickwork, the bases of the chimneys and 3 chamfered oak beams to each cellar, parallel with the street. No features of special interest are exposed to view in the first storey; an inserted stair against the north party wall from the street to the second storey. The front rooms in the second storey of both houses have 2 painted chamfered beams, stopped at their inner ends; the party wall between the former houses is 18 inches thick; all main rooms had corner fireplaces, some now blocked. No.56 has an oak dogleg stair from second to fourth storey with square newels and 2 stout barleysugar balusters per step; a similar stair in No.54 remains only between storeys 3 and 4; there is an oak cupboard with large door panels in a rear room of the second storey, and 2 flush 12-pane sashes to the enclosed rear light-well, one with thick quadrant-moulded glazing bars of early type. The roof structure appears to date from 1900, but the form of the building was little changed; the architect is mentioned but not named in the City Council Improvement Committee Minutes. (Improvement Committee Minutes: Chester City Council: 27/9/1899 & 10/01/1900; Blomfield AW: Miscellaneous Views of Chester - Engraving: Holborn, London: 1875-). Listing NGR: SJ4048966492