6–11 Grosvenor Park Road is a
terrace of houses in
Chester
Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...
,
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...
, England. The building is recorded in the
National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II*
listed building.
It was designed by the Chester architect
John Douglas, and the architectural historian
Nikolaus Pevsner describes it as "a brilliant group of brick houses".
Location
The houses stand on the east side of Grosvenor Park Road, Chester. This road leads south to the main entrance of
Grosvenor Park. Immediately to the north of the houses is
Zion Chapel (originally Grosvenor Park Road Baptist Church), which was also designed by Douglas and built around the same time in a complementary architectural style.
History
Grosvenor Park had been developed in the 1860s on land given to the city of Chester by
Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster
Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster (27 January 1795 – 31 October 1869), styled The Honourable Richard Grosvenor from 1795 to 1802, Viscount Belgrave from 1802 to 1831 and Earl Grosvenor from 1831 to 1845, was an English pol ...
, who also paid for its design by
Edward Kemp. Its
entrance lodge had been designed by Douglas. Both the marquess and his successor, the
1st Duke of Westminster, were concerned that the maintenance and improvement of the approach to the park should be carefully handled. A scheme for building houses on the approach had been prepared in 1872, but this was not carried out. Towards the end of the decade, the terrace of houses was built, with Douglas as architect, developer and
landlord.
Architecture
The building consists of six joined houses, each of which is different, with a
turret at each end; the left turret is surmounted by a ball
finial
A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature.
In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a d ...
and that on the right has a
weathervane. The terrace is built in
Ruabon red brick with
terracotta dressings, and plaster panels on the top floor. Each house has three storeys, the top storey of which consists either of a
gabled projection from the roof, or in the case of the right hand house, a
dormer
A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window.
Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...
. The roofs are steeply sloping and made of red-brown clay tiles. The middle four houses have projecting one- or two-storey
canted
Cant, CANT, canting, or canted may refer to:
Language
* Cant (language), a secret language
* Beurla Reagaird, a language of the Scottish Highland Travellers
* Scottish Cant, a language of the Scottish Lowland Travellers
* Shelta or the Cant, a lan ...
bays containing windows which are either
mullioned, or mullioned and
transomed. Large ribbed brick chimneys rise from the roof.
[ The architectural style has a mix of ]Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
and vernacular elements.[
]
See also
* Grade II* listed buildings in Cheshire West and Chester
*List of houses and associated buildings by John Douglas
John Douglas (1830–1911) was an English architect based in Chester, Cheshire. His designs included new churches, alterations to and restoration of existing churches, church furnishings, new houses and alterations to existing houses, and a var ...
References
Citations
Sources
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:6-11 Grosvenor Park Road, Chester
John Douglas buildings
Houses completed in 1880
Gothic Revival architecture in Cheshire
Grade II* listed buildings in Chester
Houses in Chester