CHOLMONDELEY CASTLE

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Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1135794
Date first listed:: 10-Jun-1952
List Entry Name:: CHOLMONDELEY CASTLE
Statutory Address:: CHOLMONDELEY CASTLE

East front showing canted bay, south-east turret and garden urn. — Uploaded by Tom Banks This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
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Date:: 2002-02-16
Reference:: IOE01/05491/03
Rights:: © Mr J M Pickering. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1135794
Date first listed:: 10-Jun-1952
List Entry Name:: CHOLMONDELEY CASTLE
Statutory Address 1:: CHOLMONDELEY CASTLE

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: CHOLMONDELEY CASTLE

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Cheshire East (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Cholmondeley
National Grid Reference:: SJ 53651 51343

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,

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.