Old Palace Chester is located in an elevated position overlooking The Groves and the River Dee in

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

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 ...

History

Building of the palace began before 1745, and it was completed in 1751. It was built for

Samuel Peploe Samuel John Peploe (pronounced PEP-low; 27 January 1871 – 11 October 1935) was a Scottish Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter, noted for his still life works and for being one of the group of four painters that became known as the ...

Bishop of Chester The Bishop of Chester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chester in the Province of York. The diocese extends across most of the historic county boundaries of Cheshire, including the Wirral Peninsula and has its see in the ...

. The palace was substantially expanded in the 18th century, and altered again in the 19th century but, apart from the main door, its external appearance has been virtually unchanged since the 18th century. It became the official residence of the bishops of Chester in 1865, and continued to be used for this purpose until the 1920s. It then was converted for use as a

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches w ...

hostel, and retained this purpose until the early 1980s, when it was further converted into commercial offices.

Architecture

The palace is constructed in red brick with stone dressings and has grey

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

roofs. It is in three storeys plus cellars, and has a

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other vertical sides ...

. The front of the main block facing the river has eleven

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

with rusticated

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, ...

at the corners. The fourth to sixth bays form a canted projection rising through the three storeys containing the entrance door in the ground floor. All the other bays in each storey contain a

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

. Between the ground and first floors is a stone band. Above the upper storey 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 ...

and a brick coped

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 ...

. There is a one-bay wing at the right end of the building. In the wing and on the sides of the building are more sash windows. The interior contains an open-well staircase with six flights and turned

baluster A baluster () is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its ...

s; the balustrade has replaced a former

Chinese Chippendale Thomas Chippendale (June 1718 – 1779) was an English woodworker in London, designing furniture in the mid-Georgian, English Rococo, and Neoclassical styles. In 1754 he published a book of his designs in a trade catalogue titled ''The Gen ...

balustrade. On the first floor is a large room with an 18th-century decorated ceiling.

References

3.More info on Old Palace Chester History https://oldpalacechester.co.uk/about/{{DEFAULTSORT:Old Bishop's Palace, Chester Houses completed in 1751 Grade II* listed buildings in Chester Grade II* listed houses Georgian architecture in Cheshire Episcopal palaces in England Houses in Chester 1751 establishments in England

History

Architecture

See also

References