Listed Building: ABBEY GATEWAY (1376366)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4066SE NORTHGATE STREET AND ROW 595-1/4/316 Abbey Gateway 28/07/55 (Formerly Listed as: NORTHGATE STREET Abbey Gateway) GV I Gatehouse. c1300, altered c1800. Red coursed sandstone with grey slate roof having gables to front and rear; the Gateway formed the main access to the precinct of St Werburgh's Abbey, now Abbey Square. EXTERIOR: the face to Northgate Street has a full-width deep segmental relieving arch, containing a central 2-centre vehicular archway and a pedestrian archway, south, both with double hollow chamfers; an empty broad niche to each side of the vehicular arch; a plain rebuilt buttress at the south-west corner; a moulded stringcourse at upper storey floor level; upper storey rebuilt c1800; the central Gothick sash has intersecting tracery in an arched moulded opening; a coved stringcourse at the base of the plainly coped shallow gable. The face to Abbey Square has a broader vehicular archway with eroded triple hollow chamfers. A diminishing square turret at the south-east corner has a boarded pair of doors in an arched doorway with a small stair-window above; an eroded flat buttress at the north-east corner; a central Gothick sash above the archway in an eroded moulded 2-centre arched medieval opening; a recessed 12-pane window with sash-boxes exposed, to each side; a Gothick fixed-light window to the attic in the recessed gable. INTERIOR: the 3-bay vault to the archway has hollow-chamfered diagonal and ridge ribs. The stone stair against the south wall is probably c1800. The front room above the arch, evidently formerly a robing room, has ranges of cupboards with fielded panels to doors, built against 2 walls; the panel to the upper cupboard above the doorway has an armorial painting inscribed EDMUND CHESTER; the armorial panel immediately north of the doorway is inscribed SAMUEL PEPLOE LLB, Chancellor. The painter was probably of the Randle Holmes family. There are no visible features of special interest in the rear upper rooms or the attic. Compare the hollow chamfers with the vault of the undercroft at Nos 28 and 34 Eastgate Street (Brown's of Chester) (qv). (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Hubbard F: Cheshire: Harmondsworth: 1971-). Listing NGR: SJ4050266488