Listed Building: WHITE FRIARS HOUSE (1376482)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4066SW WHITE FRIARS 595-1/3/440 (North side) 10/01/72 No.14 White Friars House GV II Town house, now surgeries. Cellars probably partly medieval; rebuilding above ground level dated 1796; altered internally and to rear. Painted stone and brown Flemish bond brick with grey slate roof, ridge parallel with street. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys, 4 windows. Painted stone plinth with cellar chute, formerly 2; 3 courses of banded rustication; apron step and 2 steps in recessed porch to door of 6 fielded panels, the top pair now glazed, with overlight of 9 margined panes; a painted stone architrave within a substantial timber case with plinths and volutes to panelled pilasters with recessed roses in capitals and carved brackets to a dentilled segmental pediment; recessed sashes; 2 west of the entrance and one east of it, now of 4 panes, in painted ashlar. Above the second storey sillband the face is brick, with 4 recessed sashes per storey, those to the third storey having short upper leaves; wedge lintels; a third storey sillband; a modillion cornice; gable chimneys. The second storey balcony is removed, but its 9 iron brackets in the form of serpents or dragons are in place. The building is 50m from front to back. The rear wing is much altered, but has brickwork of C18 character and some flush sashes; a timber gutter near the south end of the rear wing is dated 1796. INTERIOR: the cellars have probably medieval tooled squared sandstone rubble outer walls to the south, the southern 5m of the west wall and the lower courses of the east and north walls; the cellars are approx 15m front to back; a cupboard-type recess in the south wall; 3 stone winder-steps against the north wall to a now blocked access. Where not of sandstone the cellar walls are brick; probably C18, with barrel-vaulted recesses built against the sides; brick wine-bins; sandstone steps from hall. The first storey has floors of late C18 coloured patterned tiles; the 2 front rooms are thrown into one; a simple pilastered fireplace, east, and a replaced fireplace, west; the passage to the rear wing has a chamfered beam, now painted, along a partly-recessed portion of its east, now party wall, perhaps pre C18. The open-well stone stair has shaped soffit and nosings, curtail step, shaped cast-iron balusters and swept rail with wreath. The third and fourth storey rooms could not be inspected, but have some panelling. Listing NGR: SJ4046266106