Listed Building: NUMBER 26 ROW | NUMBER 26 STREET (1376433)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4066SW WATERGATE STREET AND ROW 595-1/3/410 (North side) 28/07/55 No.26 Street and No.26 Row (Formerly Listed as: WATERGATE STREET No.26 Street & No.26 Row) GV II* Undercroft and town house, now shop and offices, the offices vacant in October 1991. Mid C13 party wall with No.28 Street and Row (qv), otherwise c1710 with later alterations. Sandstone, brick, grey slate roof. EXTERIOR: 4 storeys including undercroft and Row. 3 segmental-arched openings to street, in painted rusticated stone wall, containing a modern door at centre and a simple shop window to each side; a flight of 10 steps to the Row, west. The Row has rendered end-piers with 2 intermediate columns of Tuscan derivation; cast-iron railings with round-arched heads carry a double rail separated by roundels; door of 6 fielded panels in pilaster doorcase, with a camber-arched fixed-light window of 3 panes to each side, in rendered wall. Rendered Row bressumer; banded brick quoins to third and fourth storeys; a central canted oriel to third storey has leaded glazing; a 12-pane flush sash in wall to each side, with a raised brick panel carrying a painted stone sill and a gauged brick flat arch; the fourth storey has 3 replaced 6-pane flush sashes with painted stone sills above dropped brick panels and gauged-brick flat arched heads; stone-capped parapet on moulded cornice. The rear has a doorway with a cambered brick head, two flush 12-pane sashes to the storey above. Three 4-pane sashes to the top storey, one inserted. INTERIOR: the undercroft, probably altered at the front, has 2 probably early C18 barrel vaults to the rear; the structure is concealed by removable light cladding. Total width of the undercroft is 7.6m. At Row level and above the plan is double pile, with 2 main rooms at front and 2 at rear; there was no shop. The C13 stone west party wall to Booth Mansion is partly exposed. The rear room inglenook has an oak bressumer; oak panelling to the front room has a row of panels below the dado and a tall row above; oak cornices; early C18 open-well stair has slender barleysugar balusters on vase plinths, swept oak rail and spiral curtail. The softwood stair to the fourth storey is probably later C18. In the third storey there is a plastered timber beam, probably late C17, a C18 cornice and panelled embrasures, a 6-panel door to the front room and a 4-panel door with original brass hinges and furniture, 4-panel doors to the 2 west rooms; the front room is panelled with a contemporary cornice and a fireplace with overmantel of one panel; a double doorway has been cut through to Booth Mansion. The party wall has a stringcourse. The fourth storey has a 1-panel door, later 4-panel doors and simple C18 large-panelled window embrasures. (Chester Rows Research Project: Brown AN & Grenville JC & Turner RC: Watergate Street: Chester: 1988-: 32). Listing NGR: SJ4044266276