Listed Building: OVERLEIGH LODGE AND GATES AND SCREENS (1375772)

CHESTER CITY (EM) SJ4065 DUKE'S DRIVE 1932-1/8/75 (South side) Overleigh Lodge and gates and screens II Lodge, gates and gate piers and screens. c1893. By RW Edis. For the first Duke of Westminster. Gate piers, corner piers and end-piers with plinth-walls to screens of cream stone; wrought-iron gates, screens and railings. Lodge of yellow sandstone, cream stone, stone-dressed and blue-diapered red Ruabon brick; Westmorland green slate roofs. T-shaped 2-storey lodge cottage has yellow sandstone ground floor, stone-dressed blue-diapered brick first floor, porch with shaped gable and round stair turret with conical spire in front angle of T, mullioned windows, some transomed, much carved stone ornament, shaped gables, lead and wrought-iron finial to spire and highly ornate central chimney of 5 separated flues with spiral and trellis mouldings. INTERIOR not inspected. Plinths to gateway with slightly recessed moulded copings; plinths to rusticated gate piers with rebated corners, fluted capitals with moulded cornices and urn finials; end-piers to screens, larger than those to gates, have short rebates below capitals holding vase-balusters and lavishly ornamented urn finials. Double carriage-gates with quasi-overthrow hinged with gates, flanked by pedestrian gates with overthrows: bottom rail; dogbars; double lockrail and double toprail; gates and screens have richly ornamented panels with scrolls, foliar and floral motifs; coronets, Grosvenor sheafs and interlaced W's; wall extends to Wrexham Road. The gates and lodge were designed to impress visitors at the entrance to the three mile approach, now severed, from Chester to Eaton Hall (Eaton CP). (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Hubbard E: Cheshire: Harmondsworth: 1971-: 175). Listing NGR: SJ4024065060