Chester Rows are a set of structures in each of the four main streets of Chester, in the United Kingdom, consisting of a series of covered walkways on the first floor behind which are entrances to shops and other premises. At street level is another set of shops and other premises, many of which are entered by going down a few steps.
Dating from the medieval era, the Rows may have been built on top of rubble remaining from the ruins of Roman buildings, but their origin is still subject to speculation. In some places the continuity of the Rows has been blocked by enclosure or by new buildings, but in others modern buildings have retained the Rows in their designs. Undercrofts or "crypts" were constructed beneath the buildings in the Rows. The undercrofts are made from stone while most of the buildings in the Rows are timber.
Today about 20 of the stone undercrofts still exist, but at the level of the Rows very little medieval fabric remains. Many of the buildings containing portions of the Rows are listed and some are recorded in the English Heritage Archive. The premises on the street and Row levels are used for a variety of purposes; most are shops, but there are also offices, restaurants, cafés, and meeting rooms. Chester Rows are one of the city's main tourist attractions.
Description
At street level, the shops and other premises are similar to those found in other towns and cities, although many of the premises are entered by going down a few steps. On the first floor level are more shops and other premises, set back from the street, in front of which is a continuous walkway. The storey above this overlaps the walkway, which makes it a covered walkway, and this constitutes what is known as the "Row".
On the street side of the walkways are railings and an area which was used as shelves or stalls for the display of goods. The floors above the level of the Rows are used for commercial or domestic purposes, or for storage. The Rows are present, to a greater or lesser degree, in all the streets radiating from Chester Cross, namely Watergate Street, Northgate Street, Eastgate Street and Upper Bridge Street. They are continuous on both sides of Upper Bridge Street, along most of Watergate and Eastgate Street, but only for a short stretch along the east side of Northgate Street. Originally there were also Rows in Lower Bridge Street, but these were blocked during the 17th and 18th centuries.
As the ground floor buildings are usually lower than the street level, they are sometime known as "crypts". However, as the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner points out, this is not a strictly accurate description because the level of the floors of the buildings is a half-storey rather than a full-storey level below the street.
Origins
Rows were built in the four main streets leading from Chester Cross, each of which originated during the settlement's early development. In the Roman period the main street, now Watergate Street and Eastgate Street, lay on an east–west axis. It was joined at what is now Chester Cross by the main road from the south, present-day Bridge Street.
During the Saxon period, a road to the north was added which is now called Northgate Street. Dendrochronological evidence shows that the Rows go back as far as the 13th century, but it is unlikely that they originated before 1200. The first record of the Rows appears in 1293, although it is uncertain whether it refers to a Row as it would be recognised today. The "earliest unambiguous instance" of the use of the term for an elevated walkway is in 1356.
Because the Rows are unique and their precise origins are unknown, they have been the subject of speculation. Chester has suffered from a series of fires. In 1278 the fire was so severe that almost the entire town within the walls was destroyed. It has been suggested that following this fire, the owners were ordered to make their ground floors fireproof, leading to the stone-lined undercrofts. From this, the suggestion has been made that there was "a general undertaking by the citizens of Chester ... to improve the commercial potential of their property by providing two-level access for customers".
Daniel Defoe, writing around 1724 in A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, describes the Rows of Chester as “long galleries, up one pair of stairs, which run along the side of the streets, before all the houses, though joined to them, and is pretended, they are to keep the people dry in walking along. This they do effectually, but then they...make the shops themselves dark, and the way in them is dark, dirty, and uneven.”