Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

NUMBERS 32 AND 34 STREET THE OLD MUSIC HALL

NUMBERS 32 AND 34 STREET THE OLD MUSIC HALL, 32 AND 34, NORTHGATE STREET AND ROW

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1376350
Date first listed:: 27-Jul-1955
List Entry Name:: NUMBERS 32 AND 34 STREET THE OLD MUSIC HALL
Statutory Address:: NUMBERS 32 AND 34 STREET THE OLD MUSIC HALL, 32 AND 34, NORTHGATE STREET AND ROW

User submitted image — Uploaded by Peter Vardy This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Images of England Project

To view this image please use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

Archive image, may not represent current condition of site.

Date:: 2001-06-30
Reference:: IOE01/07316/33
Rights:: © Dr John L. Wishlade. Source: Historic England Archive

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Also of interest

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1376350
Date first listed:: 27-Jul-1955
Date of most recent amendment:: 05-Aug-1998
List Entry Name:: NUMBERS 32 AND 34 STREET THE OLD MUSIC HALL
Statutory Address 1:: NUMBERS 32 AND 34 STREET THE OLD MUSIC HALL, 32 AND 34, NORTHGATE STREET AND ROW

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: NUMBERS 32 AND 34 STREET THE OLD MUSIC HALL, 32 AND 34, NORTHGATE STREET AND ROW

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Cheshire West and Chester (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SJ 40547 66388

Details

CHESTER CITY (IM)

SJ4066SE NORTHGATE STREET AND ROW 595-1/4/313 (East side) 28/07/55 Nos.32 & 34 Street (The Old Music Hall) (Formerly Listed as: ST WERBURGH STREET (West side) The Music Hall)

GV II

2 shops, one to Northgate Street and the other back-to-back, to St Werburgh Street. Except for the modern frontage to Northgate Street, the building was originally the Chapel of St Nicholas, c1300 for Simon de Albo, abbot of St Werburgh's, Chester; used for a period as the church of the parish of St Oswald; closed as a church and conveyed to the Mayor and Assembly of Chester 1488; altered, with an upper floor inserted, as Commonhall and Wool Hall 1545; used for staging plays from c1750; converted as the New Theatre 1773 and the Theatre Royal 1777-8; converted as hall for concerts and entertainments by James Harrison as the Music Hall 1854-5; used as a cinema mid C20; converted to supermarket, then shops, later C20. Red squared rubble sandstone and English garden wall bond brown brick walling; grey slate gabled roofs. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. The medieval sandstone walls of the former chapel rise 24 feet, raised a further 15 feet in 18 inch brickwork for the theatre 1773; the west wall, now within Nos 32 & 34 Northgate Street, is covered from view. The former nave had 5 bays, of which the eastern 3 on the south side are visible from Music Hall Passage, and 4 bays on the north side, all but one hidden from public view, can be seen from the rear fire stair from No.40 Northgate Street (not included). The basket-arched window openings are blocked in sandstone, with badly eroded mouldings to jambs and arches visible; 4 blocked openings remain on the north side, and 2 on the south side where the east bay is largely rebuilt and the adjoining bay altered. The upper wall of each side has bricked-up window openings of Georgian proportions with cambered brick heads and, on the north side, sandstone sills. The former chancel, now of one bay, is recessed; the masonry is not toothed-in to the east of the nave; it has a blocked window, under a 2-centred arch, to each side. For conversion to the Music Hall, Harrison added the canted east porch with central doorway and a square-headed window of 2 trefoil-headed lights in each oblique face; hoodmoulds and a moulded stringcourse

carried up over the door and window opening. Harrison inserted 2 windows similar to those in the porch in the east wall of the chancel above, and at a higher level a mullioned and transomed 3-light window. The face of Nos 32 & 34 to Northgate Street is of no quality or interest. INTERIOR: all surfaces are covered, but the outer walls and the Music Hall roof are probably intact; some plasterwork is said to survive, though inaccessible. The interior of the Music Hall is illustrated in Transactions of the Chester Archaeological Society. (Cheshire Sites and Monuments Record: Record for Chester City: Chester: 3007/3/15; Blomfield C: Transactions of the Chester Society of Archaeologists: Chester: 1854-1857: 251-263).

Listing NGR: SJ4054166387

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 470345
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Transactions of the Chester Society of Archaeologists 1854-1857251-263

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.