The Rows Of Chester : Two Interpretations ( Chester Archaeological Society & Historic Society Chester C. C. Library )
P. H. LAWSON, J. T. SMITH
PART II. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Chester is assumed to have collapsed into
ruins following its desertion by Roman troops and native inhabitants in the early fifth century and to have so
remained until the end of the ninth century A.D. 894 a Danish army briefly occupied the site of the Roman fortress,
and a few years later, in A.D. 907 Aethelflaed is thought to have put the long abandoned wall into a state of defence.
The years preceding the Norman Conquest saw Chester grow
into a trading centre of some importance, a development which was no doubt intensified in the late 11th and 12th
centuries. One question relevant in this context, the date the circuit of' the walls was extended to S. and W.,
has not been satisfactorily determined, but as the Ship gate, W of the Bridge Gate, is mentioned in Earl Ranulf
l's confirmation charter of St. Werburgh's Abbey, 1121-29, the extension had probably taken place prior to that
short period. Moreover the Black Friars and the Grey Friars are known to have been established westward of the
Roman W. wall in 1236 and 1240 respectively;" presumably within the defences at that time. On the other hand
John de Helpeston's contract with the mayor and citizens to build the Water Tower in l323 may suggest that the
enlarged circuit had not long been walled with stone, but fuller evidence is needed.
Otherwise, from the Conquest onwards the only historical events which bear on our problem are purely local, principally
fires. Those recorded in 1140 and 1 I80, have been noted by several writers on the Rows. Yet another fire, little
regarded in this connection, is of importance:
1278 Combusta (est) Cestria fere tota infra muros civitatis idus Maii.
(Almost the whole of Chester within the walls of the city was burned down on May 15).
This is the historical background against which the medieval cellars must be set, to which we shall supplement
material relevant to our respective arguments.
Part III. THE CASE FOR GRADUAL GROWTH BY P. H. Lawson
Abridged Version
........ during the five centuries the site remained waste, but the width of the principal thoroughfares was
such as to leave the greater part free from obstruction. The banked levels on either side stood five feet and upwards
higher, the height varying with the character of the former buildings. Building and rebuilding, particularly in
the construction of cellars has destroyed much direct evidence, but sufficient is available to prove the contention.
The floor levels of two of our oldest churches, St. Peter's and St. Michael's are five feet and four feet respectively
above the modern roadway and a Saxon tiled floor was discovered above in situ Roman masonry in Eastgate Row', S.,
in 1826, less than three feet below the Row Roman remains found in situ in Bridge Street, Watergate Street and
Northgate Street prove conclusively that building sites in Saxon days were little more than two feet below present
Row levels and above the former Row level at 23, Northgate Street. .......................
.................... Long before the great fire of 1278 A.D.). which Mr. Smith contends gave rise to the construction
of the Rows, Rows existed in embryo, if not in name. Stalls covered with reeds gathered by special permission on
Stanlaw Marsh, had been set up at the abbot's midsummer fair and market in Northgate Street, ever since Randle
Gernon's 1128 confirmation of earl Hugh's charter of c. 1096. Although trading at this fair was restricted to the
abbey precincts until the latter part of the 13th century the citizens held their Michaelmas fair and weekly markets,
for which stalls were available elsewhere in the city, long prior to 1208 as may be gathered from the exceptions
to sole rights of trading in Randle Blundeville's charter of that date These stalls or seldae stood directly in
front of the footways which gave access to the houses and shops of the burgesses at the higher level. Some were
temporary, others even before 1270 were stone built and many were of great length. Thus in 1257 Wymarc, widow of
John the Tailor, grants to Hugh Tailor, and in 1272 John his son conveys to Robert Erneys, the half of their house
near the land of Ralph Harding, in the great street of Chester, which lies behind the seldae of John Grund, 27ft.
clear in length, and when the wall within the wall is taken down at the fair of St. Michael. 33 1/2 ft'
The city seldae stood on the site of the exceptionally wide stall-boards at the top of Bridge Street, W., 64 1/2
ft. in length in Bridge Street and 551/2ft. in Watergate Street, granted by Richard 'Nirrall, mayor, 1507-8 to
Ald. Thomas Smith, ancestor of the barnnets of Hough, who had acquired the land in rear.7 This block ultimately
passed to the Grosvenors and was last rebuilt by the Duke of Westminster in 1892. when the Watergate Street frontage
was set back for road widening. Here, the Gild Merchant, whose privileges had been confirmed by Randle Blundeville
between 1200 and 1202, received their customs and admitted members. In 1249 no less than 76 were made free there
and in the following year, 1250-1, the first of the mayoralty of Richard the Clerk, the names were enrolled of
those admitted " when the Gild last sat in the seldae From a study of the devolution of adjacent premises
it would appear that they were stone built, for in 1270 John, son of Hugh Tardif gave John Arneway the moiety of
his selda in Bridge Street, 52ft. long by lOft. in breadth, lying between the stone selda and the selda of Robert
the Mercer. But for the decline in trade which ensued a Gildhall might well have been erected on this site.
That the seldae did in fact stand in front of the undercrofts is borne out more clearly by later deeds. The quitclaim
of Richard the Clerk to a right of way through the middle of a selda, in l289, suggests access to a cellar, indeed
it is more than likely that seldae were permanently constructed against cellars of which we have no knowledge and
not merely built into the bank. One thing is clear, the frontage of the Row footway marked the boundary between
private and communal ownership. Rents were paid, in the first instance to the Earl and after 1301 to the Mayor
and Citizens in respect of the structures in "the Row".'' In 1317, Richard Erneys, citizen, in his grant
of the site of what is now the Grotto Hotel in Bridge Street. with the buildings thereon, states that it extended
114ft. in rear of his selda, and in 1330 Richard Russell settles upon his son David, his tenement within the (
City seldess in length from Bridge Street up to his land retro seld
Not only were there stone seldae in the Rows of Chester, prior to 1270, but houses had already been built in the
equivalent area in Eastgate Street, N. between the highway and the Dark Row. On the 10th of July, in that year
Edward, eldest son
of King Henry III, grants Agnes of Newcastle two houses in the Buttershops "next the roadway between St. Peter's
church and the said houses ". The presence of permanent structures where the shops in the street stand to-day,
at least 30 years before the great fire of 1278, must surely indicate that the Rows were in course of development
although the house fronts may not have been advanced at that time. The facades of St. Peter's, St. Michael's and
St. Olave's are apparently on the original building lines, for the Pentice Court against St. Peter's was functioning
before 1280. The Red Lion Inn, no. 7, Lower Bridge Street and no.28 in that street, shewn rising behind its pent-roofed
accretions in Batenham's time, bear similar testimony There was at least one stone house and cellar with steps
down to Bridge Street, built for Peter the Clerk before 1208 and possibly two, if the stone mansion in Lamb Row
is taken into account. I am also of the opinion that the double-aisled crypt at no. 11, Watergate Street is not
later than 1270, the earliest date ascribed to it by Dr. Margaret Wood and that the crypt at no. 12, Bridge Street
assigned by her to the late 13th century, was erected before the fire. Mr. Smith indulges in special pleading in
attributing them all to the period following the fire.
While the fire would consume the timber houses, it could not level their elevated sites and the fact remains that
the city was to all intents rebuilt in timber, as before. We only know of twelve party walls in six or seven houses
carried up in stone to prevent the spread of fire and there is no evidence whatever to suggest that the house fronts
were rebuilt in stone, either to their original alignment at the back of the Row or arcaded in front, until a much
later date. The cellars had to be built in stone to retain the adjoining earth banks, although in some instances,
when later intermediate cellars were excavated, use was made of existing walls. Messrs. Allen's, 32, Bridge Street,
is a case in point, where the outer irregular face of a hitherto unknown undercroft, on the site of the adjoining
Grotto Hotel, had been chased at regular intervals for the vertical framing of an earlier house and cellar. The
plan of a group of cellars like Messrs. Quellyn Roberts' in Watergate Street can be very misleading, giving the
impression of a sequence of stone houses. Further investigation may produce evidence of stone walls above Row level,
but I have failed to find any at the Leche House which Mr. Smith considers was originally stone. Half-timbered
side framing is exposed to view in the passage on the right and there is insufficient thickness on the left. The
title deeds of no. 11, inspected by kind permission of Mr. Sheriff Roberts, reveal that the present house was built
by Ald. Peter Ellames in 1744, in place of three messuages, almost certainly of timber. Whether stonework of a
medieval house had survived, it is impossible to say. The deeds are interesting in describing the situation of
the premises as "at the Open Pavement" and in including a conveyance by the mayor and citizens under
the communal seal and mayor's counter-seal, of the pavement and small shop commonly called the King's Board-the
fish market of medieval times, transferred to the Square in 1700. These were held on a yearly chief rent of 1s.,
charged on the houses in rear and were released for 30s., little more than the cost of the conveyancing. Ellames
was given free liberty to enclose and build in, leaving a convenient passage and stall under his new building to
pass and repass along the Row. No. 13 was similarly enclosed in 1771 and no. 25 about 1835. But this is relevant
only to the last phase..........................
........................ Admittedly the construction of cellars and the erection of a few stone houses spanning
the Rows in the late 13th and 14th centuries were important factors in their development but it can hardly be maintained
that they originated in a town-planning scheme initiating raised footwalks. These were already there, approached
no doubt, by steps at intervals and against the ends of permanent seldae. There is a possibility that the term
Row was in use ten years before the fire of 1278. Roger the barber was granted a house on the site of the Pied
Bull, Northgate Street, in "le Lorimersrowe" in 1267
