Cholmondeley Castle

Cholmondeley Castle is a mansion built between 1801 and 1804 by the first Marquis of Cholmondeley in collaboration with William Turner of Whitchurch. In 1817 to 1819, architect Robert Smirke added a number of towers and turrets and gave the building its present castle-like appearance. The building is constructed of sandstone with lead and slate roofing, and is mainly three storeys with a basement, though the towers rise slightly higher.

The entrance front faces west and features three-bay wings that flank a three-bay single-storey loggia. There is also a three-bay south-west tower wing. The wings contain "Y" tracery windows with splayed reveals and flush Gothic arches with keystones. The loggia has pairs of lights with intersecting glazing bars in window openings with almost circular heads. The "Y" tracery of the upper windows of the entrance hall rises above the flat roof of the loggia, again with intersecting glazing bars in the lights. The south-west section comprises a square tower with windows containing intersecting glazing bars at five levels. This is linked to a slender octagonal turret with arrow slits by a wall with blank openings. The garden front faces east and has north-east and south-east corner turrets and a large canted bay window that continues upward as a half tower. The section to the left (south) of the bay window is two storeys and three bays with cusped trefoil heads to "Y" tracery windows. The three-storey bay includes French windows providing access to the garden down eight steps. A two-storey, two-bay section with "Y" tracery windows follows to the north, and the slightly set-forward three-bay Smirke service wing, with its north turret, completes the facade. All main walls have wide projecting moulded cornices and crenellated parapets. Towers and turrets have machicolations. Slated roof sections have lead hips.

The interior is accessed to the square two-storey entrance hall via the loggia through a pair of five-panel doors flanked by sashes with Gothic heads, "Y" tracery and intersecting glazing bars. The side walls feature triple blind arcades in wood panelling and the ceiling has four inclined (hipped) surfaces. Opposite the entrance, an open arcade forms a passage running north to south and provides access to the ante-room, which has the large canted bay with full-height "Y" tracery windows containing pairs of French windows. This room has large ten-panel doors in north and south walls and a matching double door into the entrance hall passage. The ante-room has a simple dentil cornice.

The dining room lies to the north of the ante-room, approached through doors on both sides of a panelled reveal which indicates the great thickness of the wall. It features a marble mantel, a cornice of gilded fruit and leaves with ceiling rosettes, and a large ceiling rose with chandelier. The drawing room, to the south of the ante-room and again accessed through doors on both sides of the wall, has a cornice of arrows pointing downward in Lombard frieze form and a large ceiling rose with chandelier.

The staircase hall, off the drawing room, features a Robert Bakewell balustrade to the stairs and landing that was removed from the Old Hall. This is fixed to an open-well staircase of black marble with a rosewood handrail. The stair-well has a lantern-light set in a timber ceiling with bracketed, coved cornice. The nursery wing to the south is accessed from the staircase hall through a pair of four-panel Gothic-headed doors and contains six-panelled doors with wide panelled linings. The library, also at the south side of the house, has a cornice in Lombard frieze style with arrows pointing downwards.

The building represents an attempt to transform a Gothic mansion into a castle while retaining the character of the original design.