Chester College Old Building And Wall, North East And South East

The building is a College of Higher Education, founded in 1839 as a Church of England Diocesan College for training schoolteachers. It was built between 1841 and 1842 by J.C. and G. Buckler. The construction combines stone-dressed brown brick with grey slate roofs and is executed in a Tudor Revival style.

The exterior features a basement and three storeys. The original entrance front, facing Parkgate Road, is in an E-shape, with a lower wing on the right that formerly served as the College’s school. The basement windows have been replaced and sit under gauged-brick flat arches. The central entrance bay projects. A stone-dressed forecourt wall returns as parapets to 15 stone steps leading to a studded door made of three full-height panels, framed by an ornate, weathered sandstone case. There’s a three-light mullioned and transomed casement window on each side of the entrance, with a five-light casement on each end bay. The upper storeys have similar, though altered, windows. Stone-coped gables are present on the central bay and end-bays. To the right, a recessed link-bay leads to the former schoolroom, which has a gable-end front with a full mullioned and transomed window containing four rows of four lights. This gable is stone-coped with kneelers and a finial, and topped with a louvred bellcote under a belled pyramidal roof. The rear of the Old Building, and its sides, display freely composed Tudor detailing. A mid-18th century two-storey porch, now the main entrance, adjoins Cheyney Road. The rear garden face is similarly detailed and altered. The three gabled bays do not project, resulting in a more horizontal and relaxed composition.

The interior of some ground floor rooms facing Parkgate Road retains original features, but largely the rest of the building has been altered. A stone-coped wall extends from the Parkgate forecourt along the corner of Cheyney Road and south-west along Cheyney Road. This contains two pairs of square gateposts with birdsmouthed pyramidal caps.