A fact from Three Old Arches appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 1 August 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that the building known as Three Old Arches in Chester, Cheshire, has a shop front which is considered to be the oldest in England?
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My what big panes of glass they had in 1274AD! What's 13th-century about the shopfront? The painted date? --Wetman (talk) 19:31, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The stone frontage, as the article and the source states. If you have a problem, take it up with the publisher of the source. I'm sure Chester City County, who are advised by Cheshire Archaeology Planning Advisory Service in such matters, will be interested in your concerns. Nev1 (talk) 19:39, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I had an edit conflict. I was about to say that the experts are not concerned with modern insertions or the painted date (which may or may not be reliable). English Heritage says "Features of special interest are the 3 stone arches, probably the earliest identified shopfront in England" and Chester City Council says "The 13th century stone frontage at street and Row levels, is thought to be the earliest shop front to survive in England." It is not for me to question reliable sources, but rather to accept them. Peter I. Vardy (talk) 19:52, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good old English Heritage: always so reliable with the touristic archaeology. I'll go along with the program[me] of course, though the relevant quote from N. Pevsner, Buildings of England: Cheshire might be reasssuring (or might not): I'd add it myself if I could. Still shopfront is certainly a puzzler in any thirteenth-century context. So there must be signs of former fittings for wooden shutters somewhere in the masonry? Rebuilt arches? --Wetman (talk) 09:19, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think your scepticism is reasonable; every time I look at the arches, I wonder ... But it's not for me to apply OR. Looking at the photo of the shopfront at street level in IoE, I think that any fittings for ancient shutters would have been destroyed long ago. Pevsner is entirely non-committal; "The THREE OLD ARCHES is so called after a row of three single-chamfered arches".[1] Morriss (no idea how great an authority he is) is also sceptical. He says on p. 90 "if the Three Old Arches in Bridge Street are really late thirteenth-century in date, then this is one of the very few stone medieval house fronts left in any English town; most of the others are timber-framed" and on p. 91 "They are dated to 1274, and if that date is correct these arches are an extremely rare survival of the front of a stone medieval town house" (my italics).[2] I cannot find any comment about them in the Victoria County History: Cheshire.
