Chester House

TQ 2780 NW CITY OF WESTMINSTER CLARENDON PLACE W2 66/9 Chester House 10.4.75 GV II

Villa-town house. 1925-26 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott for himself. Grey brick with sparing stone dressings, ferro-concrete floors; pantile roof. Restrained carefully proportioned stripped Renaissance design. Set back behind shallow "area" garden. Low 2 storeys, effectively read as 1½ storeys to centre but reverse proportion to wings. 7 bays wide including broad wings with hipped roofs, slightly advanced from ground floor but with the 1st floor between them set well back to form terrace. Central ashlar dressed doorway with shallow pediment. Slightly recessed box-framed glazing bar sashes under flat gauged arches, tripartite to ground floor of wings and, on their 1st floor, fully developed as 3 separate sashes grouped as 2 narrow ones flanking main central one and giving on to "pergola" balconies. The returns of wings to terrace have 2 light windows and there are 2 tripartite windows to the recessed centre. Stone plinth, ground floor sill band, and fluted brick and stone coped terrace parapet. Moulded stone crowning cornice with eaves resting on blocking. Elegantly proportioned chimney stacks with shallow stone cappings. Interior, with very restrained use of simplified classical details and mouldings, has a functionally planned ground floor incorporating garage in north east corner, kitchen, former servants' sitting room and former play room and nursery, the only reception rooms being the off-centre T-plan hall to right of entrance lobby and the dining room by the kitchen to left; the staircase rises on the cross axis of the hall to serve the piano nobile reception rooms and principal bedrooms giving on to the terrace - some redecoration but otherwise unaltered.

Representative British Architects: C. H. Reilly Twentieth Century Houses: Raymond McGrath Architectural Review

Listing NGR: TQ2717280925