Building record 10464/2 - Chester Rows: 28-30 Watergate Street Row Booth Mansion

No 28-30 Watergate Street Row is a substantial Row town house largely rebuilt in 1702 as one house for George Booth as the Chester mansion of the Booths of Dunham Massey. It was later converted into an Assembly Room in around 1740 (CHER 10091). It was owned by Sothebys Auction gallery in the 1990s.

There are traces of three stone walls in the town house that may be of medieval origin including the eastern wall, a central wall and part of the western wall.

The Row level consists of three bays with a rendered Row frontage, each with sash windows. No 28 has a 6 panelled door, possibly original while No 30 is a modern replacement. The upper floors are of brown Flemish bond brickwork with stone quoins. The facade projects out from the general line of the street and is slightly angled to be seen from the Cross. The grey slate roof has its ridge parallel to the street.

Like many Row properties there is a thick rubble-filled floor between undercrofts and Row level, possibly for fire proofing between the medieval commercial and domestic premises. A late 13th century arched doorway of oak in the east house marks the front of the medieval hall, set back further than usual probably to allow for a service or stair bay between shop and hall. The present stair hall which approximately coincides with the former great hall has a C13 stone corbel, shaped as a crouching man at the centre of its west wall, probably a support for the former principal truss. A slightly altered Jacobean open-well stair with shaped splat balusters, inserted in the south-east corner of the hall leads to the upper storeys. The Assembly Room is located in the first storey of the Row building occupying the full width of the mansion.

The Row walkway has end and central piers with Tuscan responds; 3 Tuscan columns carry the bressumer over each bay, with one added column carrying a parallel beam to each bay, behind. The east and central piers and the pointed arches which they carry over the Row walk, now rendered, are 13th century, formerly at each end of the gallery of the eastern medieval town house; the west pier of the former western house carries a rendered beam over the Row walk, probably in place of a former arch. (1)

<1> Chester Archaeology, 1985-1990, Chester Rows Research Project Archive, CHER 10464 (Paper Archive). SCH6789.

<2> Brown. A. (ed), 1999, The Rows of Chester: The Chester Rows Research Project (Book). SCH6790.

<3> Smith. M.A., 1986, Chester Rows Research Project: First Interim Report (Unpublished Report). SCH6791.

<4> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

<5> Brown, A N, J C Grenville and R C Turner, 1990, Watergate Street The Rows Research Project (Unpublished Report). SCH6636.