Woodbank Villa And Entrance Portico

Woodbank Villa and Entrance Portico

A Greek Revival villa built between 1812 and 1814, designed by Thomas Harrison for Peter Marsland, a leading Stockport cotton manufacturer and owner of Park Mills. The building is constructed of sandstone ashlar with a slate roof and stands in its own grounds, now Woodbank Memorial Park.

The main villa comprises a compact two-storey structure with basement, arranged around a central stair hall with principal rooms accessed from it. A link corridor on the west side connects to a recessed service wing, which also contains a secondary stair. The principal south-facing entrance elevation features three bays with a central curved hexastyle portico with Greek Ionic capitals. The entrance doors are of eight fielded panels beneath a rectangular glazed fanlight, with tall narrow lights to either side. The flanking bays contain tripartite windows with stone mullions and segmental-headed tympana. A moulded string course separates ground and first floors. The first floor displays three unadorned flat-headed windows with 3-over-6 pane hung sashes.

The east elevation comprises three bays with an attached colonnade on the ground floor, each bay separated by two Ionic columns supporting a frieze and cornice. Three tall 6-over-9 pane windows are positioned above the colonnade. First-floor bays are divided by slightly projecting panels with rectangular sunken panels to their centres, lit by three flat-headed 3-over-6 pane hung sashes. The north elevation extends across five bays with an attached ground-floor colonnade featuring single Ionic columns between each bay, supporting a frieze and cornice. Five tall windows light both ground and first floors, matching the western elevation windows.

The service wing is a two-storey structure with basement, built in ashlar with plinth, sill bands, moulded cornice and hipped slate roof. Its south elevation contains three bays with a recessed single link bay to the right, fitted with flat-headed hung sash windows of 6-over-6 panes on the ground floor and 6-over-3 panes above. The west elevation features a raised central doorway with six-panelled door accessed by a flight of stone steps rising against the wall from the south, with a further flight descending to a basement doorway below. A 6-over-6 pane hung sash window sits above, cutting through the first-floor sill band. The outer bays contain 6-over-6 pane hung sashes on the ground floor; the left bay has a 6-over-3 pane bay window to the first floor whilst the right is blind. A tripartite basement window occurs in the right bay. A modern single-storey outbuilding of no special interest has been built against the left bay, obscuring the basement level. The north elevation presents two wide bays with a recessed link bay to the left, containing an inset doorway with sunken flanking panels, plain frieze and moulded cornice, with a segmental-arched fanlight over a part-glazed timber door. A 6-over-3 pane hung sash with sill band lights the first floor. The service wing bays have tripartite windows on the ground floor and 6-over-3 pane hung sashes above.

The entrance hall features cornice and coved ceiling with plaster panels and central light rose. Symmetrical door arrangements with architraves, panelled reveals and soffits, and six-panelled mahogany doors are flanked by rectangular plaster relief panels above. The floor comprises stone flags set in a diamond pattern. A marble commemoration plaque dated 29 August 1931 is positioned on the north wall. Access to the central stair hall is through a door to the right of the entrance. This hall is lit by a domed lantern and contains a white marble cantilevered staircase with metal balustrade and swept timber handrail. The walls and ceiling display recessed panels with moulded plaster frames, empty wall niches, plaster relief panels and moulded cornices. The floor is of stone flags in diamond pattern. Four original ground-floor reception rooms survive, although the north-west room has been subdivided by a partition wall. Two sets of double doors connect the two northern rooms, constructed as six-panelled mahogany with panelled reveals and soffit between. Marble chimneypieces are installed in the south-east and south-west rooms, which also retain moulded cornices and plasterwork. The first floor retains six-panelled doors, architraves, moulded cornices and a timber chimneypiece in the south-west room, with various plaster relief panels and roundels throughout. A large basement with coved ceiling spaces extends beneath both the main block and service wing. The ground and first floors of the service wing were not inspected at the time of listing.

A Greek Revival entrance portico stands on the west side of the grounds. Constructed of sandstone ashlar, it takes the form of a distyle in antis portico with two fluted columns supporting an architrave set between square flanking pilasters. Iron fencing extends between the columns and pilasters, with pedestrian access through the centre. Sans serif bronze lettering spelling "Woodbank Memorial Park" is fixed to the frieze, possibly dating from the 1930s. The matching half of this entrance portico, which originally stood on the opposite side of the drive, is now missing.

Thomas Harrison was a leading Greek Revivalist architect of national renown who pioneered baseless Doric and a simplified Ionic order, designing a wide range of building types with domestic architecture forming a small but important part of his practice. It is likely that he also designed the entrance portico. Peter Marsland, the original owner, was a major cotton manufacturer. In 1921, Sir Thomas Rowbotham J.P. purchased the house and grounds and presented them to Stockport as a First World War memorial. The house opened as a museum in 1931. The grounds remain in use as a public park, though the house is not presently open to the public.