Bridgewater House is in the Old Coach Road,

Runcorn Runcorn is an industrial town and Runcorn Docks, cargo port in the Borough of Halton, Cheshire, England. Runcorn is on the south bank of the River Mersey, where the estuary narrows to form the Runcorn Gap. It is upstream from the port of Live ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, 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, ...

as a designated Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. Originally built for the use of the

Duke of Bridgewater Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they a ...

, it has since has been used for various purposes and has now been converted into offices.

History

Bridgewater House was built in 1771, near the lower end of a line of ten locks leading from the Runcorn basin of the

Bridgewater Canal The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, Greater Manchester, Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was ...

to the

River Mersey The River Mersey () is a major river in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it h ...

. It was the occasional residence of the

when he was supervising the building and operation of the Runcorn branch of the canal. The canal was opened to the Mersey in 1773 and completed throughout its length in 1776. After the Duke's death in 1803 the house was used as offices by the Bridgewater Trustees, and from 1872 by the Bridgewater Navigation Company. In 1887 the assets of this company, including the house, were bought by the

Manchester Ship Canal The Manchester Ship Canal is a inland waterway in the North West England, North West of England linking Manchester to the Irish Sea. Starting at the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary at Eastham, Merseyside, Eastham, near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, it ...

Company, who used it mainly for the purpose of entertaining. At the outbreak of the Second World War, part of the house was taken over by the Balloon Section of the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

. In 1943 the whole house was requisitioned by the

Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force and civil aviation that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the ...

. After the war the house returned to the ownership of the Manchester Ship Canal Company and its future became uncertain. In 1998 a fire damaged the roof and many of the rooms.

Architecture

The house is built in brown brick with a slate roof and stone dressings in Georgian style. Its consists of 2½ storeys with a basement. The entrance front has five bays and the canal front seven bays. Steps lead up to the entrance which has a stone Doric doorcase and the entrance front is rusticated up to the ground floor level. There are stone bands at the first and second sill levels and at the top is a stone

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

with a brick

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

. The roof is hipped. The authors of the ''

Buildings of England The ''Pevsner Architectural Guides'' are four series of guide books to the architecture of the British Isles. ''The Buildings of England'' series was begun in 1945 by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, with its forty-six original volumes pub ...

'' series describe the house as being "imposing".

Present use

The house has been repaired and restored and is now owned by Bridgewater Property Management. This company uses it partly for its own purposes and leases the rest of the building as offices for other companies.

References

Citations Sources * *

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Runcorn, Bridgewater House Houses completed in 1771 Bridgewater House Grade II listed buildings in Cheshire Grade II listed houses Georgian architecture in Cheshire

History

Architecture

Present use

See also

References

External links