Cholmondeley Castle

Details

SJ 55 SW CHOLMONDELEY C.P. CHOLMONDELEY PARK

1/12 Cholmondeley Castle 10.6.52 GV II*

Mansion, 1801-4 by the first Marquis of Cholmondeley (with William Turner of Whitchurch) but in 1817-19 Robert Smirke added a number of towers and turrets and gave the building its present castle-like appearance. Sandstone with lead and slate roof. Mainly 3 storeys and basement with towers a little higher. The Entrance Front (West) has 3-bay wings which flank a 3 bay single storey loggia. There is also a 3-bay south-west tower wing. The wings have "Y" tracery windows with splayed reveals and flush Gothick arches with keystones. The loggia has pairs of lights with intersecting glazing bars in window openings with almost circular heads. The "Y" tracery of the upper windows of the Entrance Hall shows above the flat roof of the Loggia, with intersecting glazing bars in the lights. The south-west section has a square tower with windows, with intersecting glazing bars, at five levels. This is linked to a slender octagonal turret, with arrow slits, by a wall with blank openings. The Garden Front (east) has north-east and south-east corner turrets and a large canted bay window which continues upward as a half tower. The section left (south) of the bay window is 2 storeys and 3 bays with cusped trefoil heads to "Y" tracery windows. The 3-storey bay has French windows giving access to the garden down eight steps. A 2-storey, 2-bay section with "Y" tracery windows follows north and the slightly set forward, 3-bay, Smirke service wing, with its north turret, completes the facade. All main walls have wide projecting moulded cornices and crenellated parapets. Towers and turrets have machicolations. Slated sections of the roof have lead hips. Interior: Access to the square 2-storey Entrance Hall is via the Loggia through a pair of five panel doors flanked by sashes with Gothick heads, "Y" tracery and intersecting glazing bars . The side walls have triple blind arcades in wood panelling and the ceiling has four inclined (hipped) surfaces. Opposite the entrance an open arcade forms a passage running north to south and gives access to the ante-room which has the large canted bay with full height "Y" tracery windows containing pairs of French windows. This room has large ten-panel doors in north and south walls and a matching double door into the Entrance Hall passage. There is a simple dentil cornice. The Dining Room is north of the Ante-room, approached through doors at both sides of a panelled reveal which indicates the great thickness of the wall. Here there is a marble mantel, a cornice of gilded fruit and leaves with ceiling rosettes and a large ceiling rose with chandelier. The Drawing Room, south of the Ante-room and again through doors both sides of the wall, has a cornice of arrows pointing down, in Lombard Frieze form, and a large ceiling rose with chandelier. The Staircase Hall, off the Drawing Room, features the Robert Bakewell balustrade to stairs and landing removed from the Old Hall. This is fixed to an open-well staircase of black marble and has a rosewood handrail . The stair-well has a lantern-light in a timber ceiling with bracketted, coved cornice . The Nursery Wing (south) is off the Staircase Hall, approached through a pair of four-panel Gothick headed doors. This has six-panelled doors with wide panelled linings. The Library, also at the south side of the house, has the Lombard frieze style of cornice of arrows pointing downwards. A building which has accepted the attempt to turn it into a castle but still retains the character of the original Gothick Mansion. Gervase Jackson-Stops in Country Life, 26 July 1973.

Listing NGR: SJ5365151343

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

56882

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Country Life in 26 July, (1973)

Other
Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England, Part 6 Cheshire,

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