Park Lodge

CHESTER CITY (EM)

SJ4166 GROSVENOR PARK 1932-1/6/135 (North side) Park Lodge

GV II

Park-keeper's lodge, now park office. 1865-7. By John Douglas at the expense of the second Marquis of Westminster. For Chester City Council. Tooled squared snecked red sandstone rubble, timber frame with plaster panels and red-brown tile roofs. High Gothic moving towards Vernacular Revival. PLAN/EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, T-shaped with single-storey office wing; the lower storey is stone, the upper storey framed. The east front has ornate timber-framed gabled porch to door of 2 boarded panels on wrought-iron hinges; a 2-light mullioned casement with stiff-leaf colonnettes, left; a canted bay window projecting front gable, right. Upper storey on corbel-table has a small 6-pane casement above porch, a 12-pane casement in hipped dormer left and a 20-pane cross-window in front gable right; four crowned figures with armorial shields; small framing; jettied gable with curved braces; shaped and carved bargeboards; finial. The left wing has small panels and herringbone struts; a chimney of 6 attached round flues by junction of ridges. The south side, left, has bay window as to east front, 4 crowned figures bearing shields, cross-window in gable, shaped and carved bargeboards, finial. The single-storey wing, formerly with public lavatories, has boarded door with pair of casements left and painted-arched window right, all in moulded surrounds; a small cross-gabled wing at left end. The north side, right, to Union Street has a 2-light casement and a 1-light casement to the ground floor with C13-style details and an unpierced herringbone-strutted first floor; the rear gable has a cross-window to first floor; a pair of C13-style lights to stair. INTERIOR: much of Douglas's detailing: doorcases and most doors; dogleg newel stair; some cornices. (Chester City Council and Committee: Park Committee Minutes: 1865-1867: PASSIM; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Hubbard E: Cheshire: Harmondsworth: 1971-: 160).

Listing NGR: SJ4117666342