Building record 10753 - No 24 Castle Street, former military hospital

<1> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 470112 (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

No 24 Castle Street is a detached two storey house, now in use as an office, originally built in 1826 but altered in the 20th century. It was probably designed for use of officers in association with the Chester Regiment buildings nearby. It is of red Flemish bond brick with a hipped grey slate roof and a main ridge parallel with the street. A lead rainwater head is inscribed GR 1826.

<2> Wood, J, 1833, Plan of the City of Chester (Maps and Plans). SCH5258.

On 19th century maps this building is listed as a military hospital consisting of a squarish building with a ward and store room on the ground floor and set in a larger walled compound. The kitchen was built against the rear wall of the compound. The hospital is shown in 1833 fronting onto Castle Street but with a long narrow structure leading back to the newly built Grosvenor Street. It later became the site of No 24 Castle Street.

<3> Oxford Archaeology North, 2020, Northgate Redevelopment Off-Site Drainage Route, Chester: Archaeological Watching Brief Report, R4490 (Client Report). SCH8975.

An archaeological watching brief was undertaken in 2020 during the excavation of several cruciform trenches, as part of the off-site drainage, for the redevelopment of Chester Northgate. Trench 6, located within the Grosvenor roundabout (NGR 340423 365892), was found to contain the remains of a north-west/south-east-aligned machine-made red brick wall, bonded with sandy lime mortar. Four courses of this 1.05m wide wall survived. This was probably the boundary wall of the military hospital, located to the east, depicted on the Ordnance Survey 1:500 town plan of Chester, 1874.