Townwell House is an Early Georgian town house in

Nantwich Nantwich ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. It has among the highest concentrations of listed buildings in England, with notably good examples of Tudor and Georgian architecture. ...

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, located at number 52 on the north side of Welsh Row (at ). It dates from 1740, and is listed at

grade II* In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

; in the listing,

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

describes the building as "important" and highlights its "good central entrance". Townwell House is one of many Georgian buildings on Welsh Row, which

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

calls "the best street of Nantwich".Pevsner N, Hubbard E. ''The Buildings of England: Cheshire'', p. 289 (Penguin Books; 1971) () Number 83, on the opposite side of the street, is also listed at grade II*.

History

The house was constructed in 1740.Stevenson PJ. ''Nantwich: A Brief History and Guide'', p. 29 (1994) As the name suggests, it stands on the site of one of the town's wells.

Description

Townwell House is a large town house of three storeys and five bays, in red brick with stone dressings under a tiled roof. The prominent doorway has a stone surround with triple keystone decoration above; it is topped by a

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

supported by paired

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

s. The windows of the front face all have stone sills and a horizontal stone band above, decorated with a single keystone. One of the first-floor windows at the rear features an arched top. The

quoins Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...

are decorative and a stone

string course A belt course, also called a string course or sill course, is a continuous row or layer of stones or brick set in a wall. Set in line with window sills, it helps to make the horizontal line of the sills visually more prominent. Set between the ...

separates ground and first floor levels. At the eaves level is a wooden

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

. The interior features panelling. At the rear of the house is a contemporary two-storey

coach house Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Coac ...

and a

walled garden A walled garden is a garden enclosed by high walls, especially when this is done for horticultural rather than security purposes, although originally all gardens may have been enclosed for protection from animal or human intruders. In temperate c ...

References

{{coord, 53.0679, -2.5269, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Houses completed in 1740 Grade II* listed houses Grade II* listed buildings in Cheshire Houses in Nantwich

History

Description

See also

References