Parrs Wood House

Parrs Wood House is a country house, now used as a student hostel, probably dating to the late 18th century and altered subsequently. It is constructed of scored stucco with a hipped slate roof. The main block is square and faces west, with two unequal service wings extending to the north. It has two storeys and three bays, plus a three-window service range to the left. The facade features a plinth, a first-floor band, and a cornice below the eaves, carried around the entire structure.

The principal element is symmetrical, with a prominent, pedimented centre. A bowed porch with engaged wooden Tuscan columns and antae stands at ground floor, featuring a triglyph frieze with oxen skull metopes, a cornice with a wrought-iron balustrade, a round-headed doorway with a nine-panel door and a plain fanlight, and curved sash windows. All sash windows have margin panes. The ground floor features large tripartite sashes in segmental blank arches; the first floor has a sash window in the centre, flanked by coved niches, a similar window to the left, and a blind window to the right. A service wing to the left breaks forward and has three similar sashes on each floor, along with a flat-roofed porch attached to the corner, featuring a round-headed doorway with a fanlight having radiating glazing bars. Numerous ridge chimneys are present.

The five-window south front has a central, two-storey, three-window bow with a cast-iron balcony to the first floor, supported by very slender iron columns, and otherwise matching fenestration. On the east side, a seven-and-four window range includes a single-storey, three-window bow at the south end and a pedimented centre to the front of the service wing at the north end. Sashed windows are similar to those on the front, with a twentieth-century external corridor attached at ground floor.

Inside, the entrance vestibule has diamond-pattern marble paving and two mahogany panelled doors on each side. The principal doorway has a classical architrave. A central staircase hall is illuminated by a domed skylight and contains a flying imperial staircase with half-landings carried on Tuscan columns. Ionic screens to the landings feature a rosette frieze and dentilled cornice, and doorways have architraves with relief panels depicting classical scenes of rural life. Fine decoration is found in the south and east rooms, including fireplaces—one with Ionic columns, the other with herms—moulded plaster friezes, and modillioned cornices. An elliptical room on the first floor was once similar to the Cupola Room at Heaton Hall, but its decoration has recently collapsed.

The house may have been designed by a member of the Wyatt family and was owned by Richard Farington, brother of the diarist Joseph Farington, who was a frequent visitor until his accidental death in Didsbury church in 1821.