22, Winckley Square

This large town house, later adapted for use as offices and a gymnasium, was constructed around 1850. It was commissioned for Philip Park, a surveyor, civil engineer, and partner in Park, Son, and Garlick, who also served as Treasurer and Steward to Preston Corporation. The building is of red brick in Flemish bond, with sandstone dressings and a slate roof. It has a double-depth, single-fronted plan with a long rear extension. The property comprises three storeys over a basement, and is three bays wide. The basement is faced with ashlar and appears as a plinth, with raised rusticated quoins. Moulded sill bands run to all floors, with sill blocks below the second-floor windows, alongside a plain frieze and a prominent modillioned cornice. The entrance is in the first bay, approached by four renewed steps protected by cast-iron railings with urn finials. The doorway has a moulded architrave with a dentil cornice resting on carved consoles, and a four-panel door with a plain rectangular overlight. The two windows to the right have matching architraves and panelled aprons. The upper floor windows also have moulded architraves; the centre window on the first floor has a segmental pediment on consoles, and the flanking windows have moulded cornices. All windows are sash without glazing bars. A hipped roof is topped with a corniced stone chimney to the left. The rear elevation features a two-storey back extension with a later attic, and wooden canted oriels on the first floor. Inside, a very large, open-well staircase has two turned balusters per tread, a wreathed mahogany handrail, and egg-and-dart cornices. A former front room on the first floor, now partitioned, retains a modillioned egg-and-dart cornice and a grey marble fireplace with anthemion enrichment. Cellars extend throughout the entire building and are accessed by steps from the rear extension.