Building record 11113 - The Ship Inn, Handbridge

<1> Ordnance Survey, 1872-1875, Metric Ten Foot Scale Town Plan of Chester (Maps and Plans). SCH6780.

The Ship Inn on Handbridge Road is built in the Georgian style using red brick with a small enclosed yard to the rear. It is recorded on historic maps from the mid 19th century onwards.

<2> Peter de Figueiredo (Independent Consultant), 2008, The Ship Inn, Handbridge, Chester: Historic Environment Impact Assessment, R4590 (Client Report). SCH9203.

Heritage statement produced in 2008 for the Ship Inn, Handbridge in advance of refurbishment and extension. The building stands within the Handbridge Conservation Area. The Ship Inn is the largest of a terrace of three mid 19th century brick built terraced properties of three storeys with a slate roof. The front elevation has two four pane sash windows at first and second floor levels, and a classical ground floor pub frontage which was added in 1925. This is stuccoed with shallow rustication and a fascia containing the name of the inn. Historic photographs show that the stuccoed frontage has been changed by the removal of the left hand entrance to be replaced by a window. A good wrought iron hanging inn sign bracket projects out over the footway.

The gable elevation, which is largely blank, was probably not designed to be visible. Unlike the front façade, which is faced in good quality bricks laid in a Flemish bond, the side elevation uses cheaper bricks in a garden wall bond. The two windows, introduced to light the staircase, may have been a later alteration, as their proportions do not suit the large scale of the gable end. In detail too they are different, for they have tile rather than stone sills like all the other openings, and the windows are casements rather than sashes, lacking the quality of the front and rear windows.

At the rear of the terrace the properties have yards, enclosed by a high brick wall. The Ship Inn differs from the residential properties in that it has a two storey outbuilding. It has a close relationship with Edgar’s Field, which it adjoins on two sides. The park enjoys an impressive riverside setting, affording views of the city, and contains the outstanding historic shrine to the goddess Minerva.