The Citadel

WESTON-UNDER- - SJ 5628-5728 REDCASTLE C.P.

17/173 The Citadel

28.10.60 GV II*

Dower house. 1824-5 by Thomas Harrison of Chester on site of late C18 building. For Sir Rowland Hill, fourth baronet of Hawkstone, for the use of his mother and her sister-in-law, Jane Hill. Red sandstone ashlar; slate roofs concealed by crenellated parapets. Gothic Revival Castle style. Plan consists of 3 circular bastions grouped around a central octagon with 2 castellated walls at 45° angles to rear. 2 storeys with continuous chamfered string course and false machicolations to bastions; mock gun-loops. Wooden mullioned and transomed windows throughout, those on ground floor and on both floors to bastions with plain labels; 4-centred arches to centre window of middle bastion and to inner windows of outer bastions on first floor. Entrance through shallow embattled porch to centre bastion; 4-centred arch with C20 Gothic traceried door. Octagonal spiral stair turret projection to rear of centre bastion and red brick stacks with 4 attached octagonal stone shafts to rear of outer bastions. Walls at 45° angles to rear with embattled parapet and stepped buttresses with gabled caps conceal late C19 red brick additions (formerly more extensive) to rear. Interior: main features to ground floor include original open-well staircase with Gothic tracery to cast-iron balustrade, plain open string and panelling to dado. Perpendicular-style fireplaces, notably the one in the dining room with segmental arch and trefoil decoration to spandrels. Ceilings mainly have plaster ribs and foliated bosses except to dining room, which is coffered and has elaborate plasterwork. Panelled doors and window shutters. B.O.E. p.312; C.L. (August 21, 1958) pp.368-71.

Listing NGR: SJ5711328530