Listed Building: 6-11, GROSVENOR PARK ROAD (1375834)

CHESTER CITY (EM) SJ4166 GROSVENOR PARK ROAD 1932-1/6/142 (East side) 10/01/72 Nos.6-11 (Consecutive) GV II* Row of 6 town houses. 1872. By John Douglas as architect and developer. Ruabon red brick; some plaster panels and terracotta; red-brown clay tile roof. A varied but disciplined rhythm in Douglas's Germanic manner, flanked like his adjoining Zion Chapel (qv) by spired octagonal turrets. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys with second floor partly in the high, steep roofs. Well-executed brick detailing with boldly corbelled left turret, mullioned and mullioned and transomed casements and panelled gables with some plastered lozenges. Mullioned and transomed ground-floor windows. Panelled doors with wrought-iron furniture, some covered, in varied porches. First and second-floor windows are mullioned or mullioned and transomed; some purpose-made leaded and painted glazing in upper lights. Sequence as follows: left bay with jettied first floor to end, hipped roof and hipped dormer facing Zion chapel, porch then octagonal turret with lead finialed spire to front : second bay with hipped dormer; broad third bay with great finialed half dormer, and with hipped canted bay window to ground floor; fourth bay with broad gabled dormer; gabled fifth bay with 2-storey canted, parapeted bay window; gabled sixth and seventh bay, the latter with a 2-storey hipped canted bay window and slender turret with steep spire and weathervane, marking the corner between Grosvenor Park Road and Grosvenor Park. The right end is more simply expressed than front and left end. 4 great ribbed chimneys. INTERIORS not fully inspected but retain Douglas detailing, some of very high quality. The houses were highly praised by Raffles Davison, noted by Muthesius and acclaimed by the Chester Archaeological Society as distinguished townscape between the then recently constructed City Road from the railway station and the 5-year-old Grosvenor Park where Kemp was designer and Douglas architect. (Hubbard E: The Work of John Douglas: London: 1991-: 112-5, 243, 250). Listing NGR: SJ4117966407