Crypt Chambers (or Crypt Building) is at 28–34 Eastgate Street and 34–40 Eastgate Row,

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

as a designated Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

and incorporates a section of the Chester Rows.

History

Crypt Chambers is built on the site of a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

house whose

undercroft An undercroft is traditionally a cellar or storage room, often brick-lined and Vault (architecture), vaulted, and used for storage in buildings since medieval times. In modern usage, an undercroft is generally a ground (street-level) area whi ...

is still present. The present building was constructed in 1858 to a design by T. M. Penson. It was built as a

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...

for William and Charles Brown of the Browns of Chester family of drapers. Browns entrance

Architecture

Exterior

The building is in four storeys plus attics. It is constructed in red and yellow

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

with a roof of brown tiles. The

façade A façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face". In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...

is asymmetrical, having a square stair

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Optical microscope#Objective turret (revolver or revolving nose piece), Objective turre ...

, with three bays to the east and one wider bay to the west. At the street level five steps at the base of the tower lead down to the undercroft and in the middle east bay eight steps lead up to the Row level. Between these are shop fronts. At the Row level are

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

railings behind which are stallboards and above them are moulded arches. On the front of the tower at this level is a blank scroll, on the east face is a recessed panel containing the initials W. B. (for William Brown), on the west face the initials are C. B. (for Charles Brown) and on the rear face is a scroll inscribed AD 1858: CRYPT CHAMBERS. On each side of the entrance to the shop are the Chester City

arms Arms or ARMS may refer to: *Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to: People * Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader Coat of arms or weapons *Armaments or weapons **Fi ...

. In each of the third and fourth storeys of the east bays are three pairs of arched, two-light windows with slender columns between each pair. In the west bay are four two-light arched windows in each storey. At this level on the tower is a two-storey

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window generally projects from an ...

. Above these storeys, the central eastern bay has a

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

containing a traceried window in a rounded triangle, on each side of which are three-light dormer windows. The west bay also has a gable; this contains a small triangular oriel. The tower has a four-light window between shallow

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...

es. The top of the tower consists of a truncated

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

with a gabled dormer on each face. At its summit is a cast iron rail.

Interior

The undercroft consists of four bays with chamfered rib-vaulting; the

masonry Masonry is the craft of building a structure with brick, stone, or similar material, including mortar plastering which are often laid in, bound, and pasted together by mortar (masonry), mortar. The term ''masonry'' can also refer to the buildin ...

is "of high quality". The architectural historian

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

considered its undercroft to be "one of the best medieval crypts of Chester". Much of the structure above the undercroft has been changed or covered by modern materials.

References

{{Reflist, 30em Commercial buildings completed in 1858 Grade I listed buildings in Chester Medieval British architecture Department stores of the United Kingdom Gothic Revival architecture in Cheshire Thomas Mainwaring Penson buildings

History

Architecture

Exterior

Interior

See also

References