BROXTON HALL.
To cite but a couple, Carden Hall and Broxton Old Hall. The former must have been a superb example, beautiful alike in situation and in itself; though now somewhat marred by sundry modernisings. Its neighbour, Broxton, has undergone restoration, but retains a good amount of the original framing. As fairly representative of its kind, a detail of a gable is given, “ab uno disce omnes.”
Seeing that several towns capable of supplying scores of opportunities for pursuing our subject—e.g. Stockport, Sandbach, Middlewich, and Nantwich—have been left out of sight, it is obvious that not a tithe of the county’s wealth has been touched upon in this slight survey.
If, however, none of these towns has been laid under tribute, a similar course with respect to the capital city would be indefensible.
Inasmuch, however, as Chester’s half-timbering has so often been dealt with from the standpoints of antiquary, artist, and architect, more than an abbreviated review seems unrequired, and anything like a complete catalogue raisonné uncalled for of the possessions of what must once have been a veritable “black and white” city, and can still claim to be one of the chief places for studying the style.
Chronologically the Chester timber buildings may not number any quite comparable to Shrewsbury’s “Butcher’s Row”; howbeit there is at least one example running that noted Gothic specimen fairly close, as regards age, at all events—the house at the corner of Castle Street being probably one, if not the earliest—(pace a placard on the seventeenth-century house in Lower Bridge Street proclaiming it to be the oldest house, adding a mere matter of 600 years by converting the figure six on the beam into a nought! and by this doctored date duping, it is to be feared, many an unsuspecting visitor!).
This corner house is closely associated with the names of those Chester worthies, the Randle Holmes, of heraldic and antiquarian renown. An examination of the mouldings and other details of this house points to it having been erected in Tudor times.
Happily still confronting us in Lower Bridge Street is that old hostelry known as the “Falcon,” and also “The Bear and Billet,” once the town house of the Earls of Shrewsbury and Talbot. The former has a most engagingly picturesque appearance, with an effective row of quatrefoils under the range of many-mullioned windows. Looking at the proportion of the fronts of both these buildings taken up by their ranges of windows, stretching from side to side, brings to mind that Derbyshire doggerel, coined to suit a somewhat like case—
“Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall.”