Listed Building: BEAUFORD LODGE AND FRONT GARDEN WALLS AND GATE PIERS (1375759)

CHESTER CITY (EM) SJ46NW DEE BANKS 1932-1/2/61 (East side) 10/01/72 Nos.31 AND 33 Beauford Lodge (No.31) and front garden walls and gate piers II Handed pair of houses. 1869. By John Douglas, No.33 as his own home, 1869-1892, with minor alterations c1945. Brown brick with blue brick diapering and a little stone dressing; grey-green slate roof. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, each house of 3 bays; composed as a pair of projecting front-gabled central bays, with a 2-bay wing to each side, outer bays punctuated with an attic-dormer gable. Blue-brick capped plinth; a tripartite 2;2;2-pane stone-mullioned sash, left; hip-roofed porch and small conservatory, the latter projecting beyond the porch, all timber-framed, with leaded 3-light mullioned-and-transomed window in left side, door with leaded "cross-window" glazing, one transomed light window to each side of conservatory and a 4-light ditto to front; the glazing of No.33 mirrors No.31. The brickwork is diapered between ground floor and first floor windows. The first floor of No.31 has a 5-faced oriel added c1945, reasonably harmonious; triple small 2-pane lancet sashes over porch; a pair of pointed-arched 2-pane sashes with stone mullion, circular panel above inscribed JD; a blue-brick relieving arch above the two sashes and panel; the fenestration to No.33 mirrors No.31 except that the panel has intertwined V and A and the pair of 2-pane arched sashes in the end bay is unaltered. Each dormer-gable has a miniature 1-pane window to cockloft, each front gable a pair of arched miniature windows with a blank recessed arched panel to each side. A pair of substantial shaped central chimneys, one before, the other behind the ridge; a projecting chimney with plinth and shaped flues on each gable. The rear is simply detailed; 2 hipped lucarnes. INTERIOR: No.31 has most detail intact; doors with frames typical of Douglas; stair with shaped splat balusters; frieze in right front room downstairs. The interior of No.33 is probably similarly maintained, but Douglas did not repeat the frieze of No.31 for his own house. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the garden walls are sandstone with flush steeply-weathered copings; square gate piers diminishing beneath octagonal finials. (Hubbard E: The Work of John Douglas: 1991-: 5-6, 56-58, 80). Listing NGR: SJ4204765776