Description

CHESTER CITY (IM)

SJ4066SE BRIDGE STREET AND ROW
595-1/4/44 (West side)
10/01/89 No.30 Street and No.28 Row
(Formerly Listed as:
BRIDGE STREET
No.30
Liberty)

GV II

Undercroft and town house, then public house, now shop.
Unexecuted plans and perspective for rebuilding dated 1873 by
John Douglas; more modest proposals possibly by Douglas and
Minshull approved by Chester City Council Improvement
Committee 4 January 1899, modified and re-approved 27
September 1899 and built 1900; before 1899 the public house
was the Harp and Crown, thereafter the Grotto; wholly recast
internally, except for the cellars, as a shop 1980s. Painted
sandstone and brick and timber framing with plaster panels;
grey slate roof hipped to south and to rear.
EXTERIOR: cellars and 3 storeys including street and Row
levels. The front to Bridge Street, having a carved bressumer
above the Row opening and supporting capitals slightly out of
true, may in part be a reconstruction rather than a new
building; it is unique for its period in central Chester in
being no taller than the building replaced. The street-level
shopfront has stone piers, a 1980s doorway in an older
recessed porch, south, with double part-glazed doors,
sidelights and leaded overlight; a 2-pane shop-window with
leaded glazing above the transom; a similar window of one pane
in the canted corner with Commonhall Street; 10 stone steps
and one wooden step to Row, south. The Row front has turned
wooden balusters and moulded rail, stone piers with capitals
carrying third storey bressumer and stone newel at head of
steps, all with roll-moulded arrises. The stallboard, 2m from
front to back, formerly had an enclosed northern bay, used as
a barber's shop. The Row walk is boarded. The shopfront to
rear of the Row walk is of black-painted brickwork with double
doors, 2 shop-windows north of the doorway and one south, all
similar to those at street level; an S-shaped flight of steps,
replaced in concrete, to Commonhall Street and a 1970s
concrete footbridge to the Row of No.26 (qv), north. The
ceiling above the Row and stallboard is plastered; a tall
shaped bracket supports the jettied third storey at the
corner. The north bay of the small-framed third storey has a
jettied front gable similar to that of the previous building;

the panels beneath the windows, and the sides of the windows
in the front gable-end are shaped; two 3-light casements in
the gable-front and one in the south bay; slightly curved
herringbone gable struts, bargeboards and finial; a ridge
chimney.
The face to Commonhall Street behind the Row steps is of
painted brick up to Row storey sills and small-framed above
with S-curved braces; the informal window-pattern includes a
curved oriel.
INTERIOR: the cellar probably dates in its present form from
1900. There are no visible features from before the 1970s in
the upper storeys.
(Improvement Committee Minutes: Chester City Council: 4/1 &
27/9/1899; Chester Rows Research Project: Harris R: Archive,
Bridge Street West: 1989-).

Listing NGR: SJ4052366195

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• 28 Bridge Street, Chester at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q4634470

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)