The timber-framed Widows' Almshouses building, which is listed at grade II,[1] has subsequently been used as a café, public house, night club, restaurant, wine bar and hotel.

Roger Wilbraham (1623–1707/8) was born at Townsend House on Welsh Row, and inherited the family's Nantwich property on the death of his elder brother in 1649.

[4] A few months after the death of his wife, he decided to found almhouses for impoverished widows in her memory, describing their foundation in detail in his journal: It was just Quarter of a year before I returned to my widow-bed, & that while I had no rest in my spirit; sleep became a straunger to me; and while I lay musing I thought of erecting a monument that might transmit the memory of my D.[ear] wife to posterity; it came into my thoughts, that I had in our own Street, three well built houses, under a roof, with convenient apartments, that might easily be converted into an Almshouse, for half a dozen poor aged widows; and thought better to devote something of this nature to the Honor of God and to her memory that had been mindfull to lay something by, to be distributed to poor widows in her own street.

I gave notice forthwith to the Tenants of these houses to remove at Christmas coming and till then I cd proceed no further in this affair.

The day following being Sunday the said widows went orderly in their gowns to Church; took their places in a seat wch I had provided for them in the face of the Pulpit; dined with me that day; and joined with me and my family to beg a blessing upon this charitable mite which God enabled me and inclined my heart to cast into the Corban, and lent me life to see it accomplished.

The almshouse deed was dated 15 January 1676–7; the endowment of lands in Betchton, near Sandbach, gave an annual income of £24.

[6] It is traditionally stated that a line was drawn across the main ground-floor room in each cottage, passing through the centre of the single grate, leading to arguments about housework.

[7][14] After the Second World War, the buildings were renovated and converted into the Cheshire Cat Eating House, one of the town's best-known cafés and tea shops.

The 17th-century part of the building faces Welsh Row and comprises a terrace of three black-and-white cottages with a timber frame infilled with bricks under a tiled roof.

[1][20] In the original layout, the doorways opened onto a small lobby area in front of the chimney breast, a characteristic feature of Nantwich buildings dating from the early 17th century.

[22] The wear has been attributed to the adjacent butcher's shop (now incorporated into the Nakatcha Bar, formerly the Three Pigeons public house) belonging to Harry Bebbington, who is said to have sharpened his knives on the steps.