Leche House

Leche House
Leche House
	Leche House
Location	17 Watergate Street and Row, Chester, Cheshire, England
Coordinates	53°11′24″N2°53′33″W / 53.1901°N 2.8926°W Coordinates: 53°11′24″N2°53′33″W / 53.1901°N 2.8926°W
OS grid reference	SJ 404 662
Built	14th century; 17th century
Built for	Sir John Leche
Listed Building – Grade I
	Official name: No.17 Street and No.21 Row (Leche House)
Designated	28 July 1955
Reference no.	1376427
	Location in Cheshire

Last updated April 17, 2019

Leche House is at 17 Watergate Street and Row, Chester, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and incorporates a section of the Chester Rows.^[1] It is considered to be the best preserved medieval town house in Chester.^[2]

Chester is a walled city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales. With a population of 118,200 in 2011, it is the most populous settlement of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 332,200 in 2014. Chester was granted city status in 1541.

Cheshire is a county in North West England, bordering Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south and Flintshire, Wales and Wrexham county borough to the west. Cheshire's county town is the City of Chester (118,200); the largest town is Warrington (209,700). Other major towns include Crewe (71,722), Ellesmere Port (55,715), Macclesfield (52,044), Northwich (75,000), Runcorn (61,789), Widnes (61,464) and Winsford (32,610)

The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England’s official list of buildings, monuments, parks and gardens, wrecks, battlefields and World Heritage Sites. It is maintained by Historic England and brings together these different designations as a single resource even though they vary in the type of legal protection afforded to each. Conservation areas do not appear on the NHLE since they are designated by the relevant local planning authority.

History

The house was built by Alderman John Leche in the 17th century^[3] on an undercroft dating from the late 14th century, which was extended in the later part of the following century; minor alterations were made in the 18th century.^[1]

An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council member elected by voters.

An undercroft is traditionally a cellar or storage room, often brick-lined and vaulted, and used for storage in buildings since medieval times. In modern usage, an undercroft is generally a ground (street-level) area which is relatively open to the sides, but covered by the building above.

Architecture

Exterior

The house is built in sandstone and brick at the street level and in timber framing with plaster panels above. The roof is in grey slate. It has three storeys plus an attic in the gable overlooking the street. At the street level is a modern shop front with a double boarded door to the left. On the Row level is a rail on wooden balusters. Behind the walkway is another modern shop front. The third storey has three sash windows on which the date 1736 has been scratched on the glass.^[1] These are the Georgian style windows which were inserted in the 18th century.^[3] Below and to the sides of the windows are panels. Above these windows is a row of eight panels containing shaped saltire braces. Over this is a mullioned and transomed window to the sides of which are panels with shaped braces; in some of these is pargeting. The bargeboard contains ornate carving and at its top is a finial.^[1]

Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized mineral particles or rock fragments.

Timber framing and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs. It is commonplace in wooden buildings from the 19th century and earlier. If the structural frame of load-bearing timber is left exposed on the exterior of the building it may be referred to as half-timbered, and in many cases the infill between timbers will be used for decorative effect. The country most known for this kind of architecture is Germany. Timber framed houses are spread all over the country except in the southeast.

Slate A fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, weakly metamorphic rock

Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. Foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering, but instead is in planes perpendicular to the direction of metamorphic compression.

Interior

The former undercroft at street level has ashlar sandstone walls. At the Row level is a two-storey hall with a gallery along its west side and a plaster strapwork frieze. In the hall is a large fireplace with an overmantel dating from the early 17th century. It has three panels divided by four Ionic pilasters, above which are the arms of Sir John Leche.^[1]

In architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon the architrave and is capped by the moldings of the cornice. A frieze can be found on many Greek and Roman buildings, the Parthenon Frieze being the most famous, and perhaps the most elaborate. This style is typical for the Persians.

The fireplace mantel or mantelpiece, also known as a chimneypiece, originated in medieval times as a hood that projected over a fire grate to catch the smoke. The term has evolved to include the decorative framework around the fireplace, and can include elaborate designs extending to the ceiling. Mantelpiece is now the general term for the jambs, mantel shelf, and external accessories of a fireplace. For many centuries, the chimneypiece was the most ornamental and most artistic feature of a room, but as fireplaces have become smaller, and modern methods of heating have been introduced, its artistic as well as its practical significance has lessened.

Ionic order Order of classical architecture characterized by the use of volutes in the capital and a base moulding on the columns

The Ionic order forms one of the three classical orders of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan, and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite order, both added by 16th-century Italian architectural writers, based on Roman practice. Of the three canonic orders, the Ionic order has the narrowest columns.

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References

1 2 3 4 5 Historic England, "Number 17 Street Number 21 Row Leche House, Chester (1376427)", National Heritage List for England , retrieved 27 July 2012
↑ Langtree, Stephen; Comyns, Alan, eds. (2001), 2000 Years of Building: Chester's Architectural Legacy, Chester: Chester Civic Trust, pp. 82–83, ISBN 0-9540152-0-7
1 2 Morriss, Richard (1993), The Buildings of Chester, Dover: Alan Sutton, pp. 93–94, ISBN 0-7509-0255-8

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[images-1] 1 2 3 4 5 Historic England, "Number 17 Street Number 21 Row Leche House, Chester (1376427)", National Heritage List for England , retrieved 27 July 2012

[2] Langtree, Stephen; Comyns, Alan, eds. (2001), 2000 Years of Building: Chester's Architectural Legacy, Chester: Chester Civic Trust, pp. 82–83, ISBN 0-9540152-0-7

[morriss-3] 1 2 Morriss, Richard (1993), The Buildings of Chester, Dover: Alan Sutton, pp. 93–94, ISBN 0-7509-0255-8