Listed Building: VICTORIA PUBLIC HOUSE (1376419)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4066SE WATERGATE STREET AND ROW 595-1/4/405 (North side) 28/07/55 Nos.2 & 4 Street and Nos.2 & 4 Row (Victoria Public House) (Formerly Listed as: WATERGATE STREET Nos 2-10 (even) Street & Nos 2-8 (even) Row incl. Victoria Hotel & Deva Hotel) GV II 2 undercrofts and town houses, now 2 shops in undercrofts and Victoria Public House on Row and upper storeys. Undercrofts probably of medieval origin with some stonework visible; C17 timber-framed upper structure clad in brown brickwork early C19; rendered to rear; grey slate roof; with ridge parallel with road over front portion. EXTERIOR: 4 storeys including street and Row levels. Altered painted stone piers at each end through street and Row levels. Modern shopfronts to street, of no character. A pair of slender Tuscan columns support the dentilled bressumer over the Row front; plain square-section iron railings; the public house frontage behind the Row walk is rebuilt, with white render and varnished woodwork. Rear passage, west, to St Peter's Church Yard. Windows to third and fourth storeys replaced in existing openings by tripartite small-pane metal casements, 2 per storey and narrower on fourth than third storey. A rear chimney. The rear has a full-width gable with later additions; features are altered or hidden by render. INTERIOR: the structure of the undercrofts is concealed except for a short length of sandstone rubble wall; the dimensions, 4.01 x 12.84m and 4.28 x 12.62m, suggest medieval origin. At Row level one uncut beam and altered joists are exposed over the central bar. There is a corner fireplace in the rear corner of the west front room and an adjoining altered chimney breast in the rear corner of the front east room, probably c1720; a dogleg stair in a timber-framed stairwell adjoins each side wall, visible between the third and fourth storeys. (Chester Rows Research Project: Brown AN & Grenville JC & Turner RC: Watergate Street: Chester: 1988-: 31). Listing NGR: SJ4051466293