Description

CHESTER CITY (IM)

SJ4066SE BRIDGE STREET AND ROW
595-1/4/53 (West side)
10/01/72 Nos.48 & 50 Street and Nos.48, 50 &
52 Row (Three Old Arches)
(Formerly Listed as:
BRIDGE STREET
Nos 48 & 50 Street & Nos 50 & 52 Row)

GV I

An undercroft and town house, with No.52 Street (qv), now with
Nos 44 & 46 Street and Row (qv) a department store. c1200,
early to mid C14, late C18, C19 and C20. Sandstone and brick,
painted; grey slate roofs hipped to fronts, ridges at
right-angle to the street.
EXTERIOR: 4 storeys including undercroft and Row levels.
Features of special interest are the 3 stone arches, probably
the earliest identified shopfront in England, at front of
No.48 and the great hall across both street numbers, the
largest in the Row buildings of Chester; No.52 Street is on
the site of the former medieval service wing.
No.48: Three Old Arches: the shopfront to the street is C19
and C20 with central entrance, display window of one pane
north and a 4-pane flush sash, south; openings have
mid-to-late C19 cases with a cornice above on 6 brackets. The
piers of the 3 arches pass through undercroft, altered, and
Row storey. The Row front has 4 piers, chamfered front and
back, and 3 round arches chamfered to front; the spandrels,
flush to front and with voussoirs chamfered to front only, are
less than half the pier-thickness and supported the base-plate
of the former timber-framed upper structure. Plain cast-iron
stick balusters and rail to Row front in each archway;
consistent with the early dating, there is no stallboard;
granolithic Row walk; the rendered wall to rear of Row has a
flush sash of 8;12;8 panes with shutters on gudgeon hinges, a
flush 12-pane sash and a door of 6 margined panels; a massive
beam across the Row, north, and an exposed oak beam, south;
plastered ceiling; at the north end of the Row modern double
doors lead to No.50. The third and fourth storeys are brick,
with flush quoins at corner; 3 flush sashes to the third
storey have painted stone sills and gauged brick heads with
flush keystones; the fourth storey has a tripartite sash of
4;12;4 panes, removed for repair when inspected; plain coped
parapet.
No.50 has rendered plinth, wood pilasters, central entrance, a
1-pane window to each side and a cornice on shaped brackets.

The upper storeys are brick. The Row is enclosed; 2
nearly-flush 16-pane sashes with painted stone sills and
cambered brick heads; the third storey has 2 similar sashes;
the fourth storey has a tripartite 4;12;4 pane sash removed
for repair when inspected; plain stone coping. The rear of Nos
48 & 50 have C20 extensions.
INTERIOR: the undercroft of No.48 has cast-iron columns in
place of two 2-centred double-chamfered arches on an octagonal
central pier, removed c1900; No.50 retains the
slightly-pointed early-to-mid C14 arch on shallow-moulded
half-octagon piers; the pier-bases are below present floor
level, with a C18-C19 rock-cut cellar beneath. The Row storey
contains substantial elements of the C14 stone hall, parallel
with the street; the east and north walls, with much masonry
intact, establish dimensions of 12.4m north to south by 8.88m
east to west. The east wall has the 2-centred archway of the
front opening to the former screens passage, south, with roll
and hollow mouldings on the outer side and a square order
rebated under a segmental relieving arch on the hall side,
with vertical grooves, east, for the former buttery partition
and west for the screen; the adjacent archway, probably
formerly to a stair, is narrow, 2-centred, chamfered to the
hall but plain to the outer side, under a chamfered relieving
arch; immediately north a chamfered segmental-arched opening,
formerly to the shop; by the north corner a fourth archway,
probably formerly to a private room associated with the shop;
the archway chamfers have pyramidal stops. A C16 open
fireplace with moulded bressumer is central on the north wall,
its position suggesting a possibly earlier origin, now
contains a C19 cast-iron range; a cambered oak
inglenook-bressumer on the south wall; now plastered, the
south and west walls are probably post-medieval.
No individual features of special interest are visible in the
third or fourth storeys.
(Chester Rows Research Project: Harris R: Archive, Bridge
Street West: 1989-).

Listing NGR: SJ4053566121

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Three Old Arches at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7797678

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

• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)