Building record 10543/2 - Chester Rows: 42-48 Eastgate Street Row

No 42-48 Eastgate Street Row consists of three two storey townhouses with an attic level, currently part of a larger department store. The Row level facade is modern in design with large windows. The upper floors are highly decorative with heavy false timber framing in the Vernacular Revival style. No 42 is a single bay town house with a small jettied window at first floor level and close vertical studwork of a false 15th century style and a gabled roof on a north south axis. No 44 is also a single bay wide has two pairs of three lancet windows on the first floor and a central two light window on the attic level. It has a red tiled, gabled roof on a north south axis. No 46-48 is a wide frontage property with three oriel windows on the first floor and a jettied second floor level. The attic level has three narrow gables on a north south axis. The interior is modern. The traditional arrangement on the Rows consisted of a single storey stone undercroft at street level and a Row level building over it. Above the undercroft, the Row level building was more often timber built and consisted of a 'Row' level storey incorporating the Row walkway or stallboard extending over the frontage of the undercroft (this allowed extra head room for the undercroft and additional space for traders on the stallboards). The Row walkway was approximately 4-6m in width and incorporated the path and the stallboards themselves. The Row level storey formed the medieval shop opening onto the Row walkway. Due to differences in ground level between the front and back of the plots, the undercroft is at street level at the front and the Row level storey at ground level to the rear. The Row building also often included at least one further storey above it that extended forward again over the Row walkway. The upper floors were private, domestic quarters. The Rows are believed to be of medieval origin, dating at least to the 13th century followed by a gradual evolution of built form over a period of perhaps 100 years to create the present elements of undercroft, Row walkway and Row building. Survival of the built form of the Rows varies considerably and different elements of a single building can vary enormously in date from the 13th century through to the 20th century.