Listed Building: NUMBER 9 STREET | NUMBERS 11 AND 11A ROW GODS PROVIDENCE HOUSE (1376422)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4066SW WATERGATE STREET AND ROW 595-1/3/383 (South side) 28/07/55 No.9 Street and Nos.11 & 11A Row (God's Providence House) (Formerly Listed as: WATERGATE STREET No 9 Street & No 11A Row) GV II Undercroft and town house, now undercroft shop, Row shop occupying 2 storeys and a vacant storey. Late C13 to 1652, largely rebuilt 1862 by James Harrison as shops and town house. Sandstone and timber frame with plaster panels; slate roof with gable to street. EXTERIOR: 4 storeys including street and Row levels; one bay. Altered shopfront to street with concrete steps to Row, right; shopfront of early C20 character to Row; rail to Row on arch-braced posts in Jacobean style with iron dogbars. The Row fascia is inscribed 'God's Providence is mine Inheritance', said to be in thanks for deliverance from the plague of 1647-8. Small framing to upper 2 storeys with elaborately moulded recessed plaster panels; a row of quatrefoil braces across gable foot; ornate bargeboards and finial. Casement of four 3-pane lights to third storey and cross-window to fourth storey, both centrally placed. No visible chimney. The facade is loosely based on that of 1652, but showier and probably taller. Rear elevation not visible. INTERIOR: late C13 west party wall to undercroft of sandstone, later extended forward to street; rubble sandstone east wall has 2 beam corbels; C17 beams. An extension to rear of brick is probably C18 or C19; the ceiling structure is hidden. The shop at Row level has a painted stop-chamfered beam and a simple frieze with picture rail and cornice. The third storey, now a single room, has console brackets at head of stair, a cornice with fruit motifs, 2 plastered chamfered beams plus one replaced in steel, and a wheel-shaped moulded plaster rose decorated with flowers and fruit at the centre of each of 4 ceiling panels. The attic storey has 3 plain collar trusses, ceiled above collars. (Chester Rows Research Project: Brown AN & Grenville JC & Turner RC: Watergate Street: Chester: 1988-: 4,5,14 & 28; Bartholomew City Guides: Harris B: Chester: Edinburgh: 1979-). Listing NGR: SJ4048566261