Listed Building: NUMBER 24 ROW | NUMBER 24 STREET (1376431)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4066SW WATERGATE STREET AND ROW 595-1/3/409 (North side) 28/07/55 No.24 Street and No.24 Row (Formerly Listed as: WATERGATE STREET No.24 Street & No.24 Row) GV II* Undercroft and town house, now shop, restaurant and flat. Undercroft probably C14, extended rearward C18, with the upper structure possibly of contemporary origin but altered C17 and refaced early C19. Stone, timber frame and Flemish bond brown brick; grey slate roof. EXTERIOR: 4 storeys including undercroft and Row levels. Painted stone undercroft contains modern shopfront; painted stone end-piers to Row with 2 intermediate columns of Tuscan derivation; cast-iron railings with round-arched heads carry a double rail separated by roundels; rendered front of No.24 to Row has half-glazed door with 2 flush lower panels and arched 1-pane window. Brick third and fourth storeys; a large central canted oriel to third storey has two 24-pane sashes to front and an 18-pane sash to each side, with a recessed panel beneath each sash and a dentilled cornice above; two 12-pane recessed sashes in architraves with entablatures to fourth storey; the cornice carries a later stone-capped parapet. The rear gable is partly masked by later buildings on Goss Street. INTERIOR: the structure of the medieval undercroft is concealed by removable lightweight cladding; there is a brick barrel-vaulted rear extension, probably C18. At Row level there is evidence of a late medieval hall behind a shop bay, probably formerly with a passage, west. In the front portion, posts of large scantling carry 2 chamfered beams with brackets at west end; small panelling to west wall. A cross-beam has been cut to allow conversion of a C17 dogleg stair from Row level to third storey to an open-well stair; the altered stairwell has close studding of poor scantling and shows that the roof was raised in the C16 or C17 and C19. On the third storey there are doors with 2 small central panels between a large lower panel and upper panel, and 6-panel doors; the front room is of Georgian character with a dentil cornice; the rear room has fireplace with a plaster overmantel of 2 round-arched panels removed from No.22 Row (qv). An altered newel stair of early C18 character leads to the fourth storey where all structural features are concealed. (Chester Rows Research Project: Brown AN & Grenville JC & Turner RC: Watergate Street: Chester: 1988-: 32). Listing NGR: SJ4044866279