Eccleston Paddocks (or The Paddocks) is a large house in the village of Eccleston,

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. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

as a designated Grade II*

listed building 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 ...

. When the French architect

Paul Sédille Paul Sédille (16 June 1836, Paris – 6 January 1900) was a French architect and theorist; and designed the 1880 reconstruction of the iconic Magasins du Printemps department store in Paris. Life Though Sédille is best known for his Printem ...

saw it, he exclaimed "C'est un petit château!" That is, "This is a small castle!"

History

Eccleston Paddocks was built in 1883 for Cecil Parker, the nephew and

land agent Land agent may be used in at least three different contexts. Traditionally, a land agent was a managerial employee who conducted the business affairs of a large estate (house), landed estate for a member of the landed gentry, supervising the farmi ...

of the 1st Duke of Westminster. It was designed by the Chester architect John Douglas. The full complex consisted of the house, estate offices and stables. The service wing was demolished in 1960.

Architecture

The house has 2½ storeys and a

basement A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, ...

. The basement and ground floor are in red

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

, with horizontal bands of lighter stone. The upper part of the house is in red brick with some blue-brick

diapering Diaper is any of a wide range of decorative patterns used in a variety of works of art, such as stained glass, heraldic shields, architecture, and silverwork. Its chief use is in the enlivening of plain surfaces. Etymology For the full etymolog ...

and stone bands; the dressings are in carved stone. The roof is of red tiles, it is steep and hipped and rising from its apex is a massive brick chimney. The entrance is on the north face. Above the projecting arched doorway is a

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

ed and transomed staircase window. Over this a two-light window in a

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

, flanked by two small

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

s. The entrance bay is surmounted by two hipped roofs on each side of which are

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 ...

windows. To the right of the entrance bay are three more bays, containing a small door, and irregularly placed windows. The left bay is surmounted by a steep conical roof and the other bays by gables containing windows. The truncated service wing is to the right of this. The east front overlooks the garden. On each corner is a large turret with a conical roof, between which are two gabled bays with windows. The south front has two projecting gabled bays. On the top of every gable and roof is a

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 ...

. The original service wing included an arched gateway with a pyramid roof and a turret with a conical roof.

References

Citations Sources * * {{refend Grade II* listed buildings in Cheshire Grade II* listed houses Country houses in Cheshire John Douglas buildings Houses completed in 1883

History

Architecture

See also

References