Listed Building: REDCLIFF, WITH WALLS (1375876)

CHESTER CITY (EM) SJ4166 LOWER PARK ROAD 1932-1/6/194 (North side) 10/01/72 Nos.9 AND 11 Redcliff, with walls, piers and garden structures (Formerly Listed as: LOWER PARK ROAD No.9 Redcliff) GV II Italianate house, now 2 houses. 1852 extended probably 1860s and with garden structures 1852 by Edward Kemp. Stucco, grey slate; red sandstone garden features. EXTERIOR: No.9 has 2 storeys plus cellar, No.11 which forms the 1860s extension has 2 storeys plus attic. 3 bays to front. Symmetrical west front: 2 stone steps to Ionic portico with paired columns, entablature with modillion cornice and balustrade; 4-panel door with 1-pane fanlight in round arch. A casement of 2 full-height 4-pane lights in eared architrave to each side; Corinthian corner pilasters; short recessed wings, blank to left, with oriel, right, on moulded corbel and with shaped copper roof. First floor has frieze between 2 stringcourses, panelled beneath windows; Doric corner pilasters; triple round-arched pilastered 3-pane casements above portico; a casement of two 3-pane lights in eared architrave to each side; eaves cornice; stuccoed chimneys. Right side to the road, detailed similarly to front has tripartite 4;8;4-pane full-height casement in eared architrave to ground floor and a casement of two 3-pane lights to first floor. A short recessed bay to rear has a niche to ground floor and a pair of round-arched 2-pane sashes to first floor. The rear wing forming No.11 has a projecting timber-framed porch with a 4-pane casement left and 2 to right. The first floor has four 4-pane casements and attic in mansard roof has 4 gabled dormer with 2-pane sashes in pediment cases. The left face to the Dee has detailing as the front. The rear bay has a conservatory-porch, C19, having solid apsidal end with 3 round-arched fixed lights, glazed roof with semi-dome to end, and iron column of intersecting spiral bars. No.11 has a large first-floor balcony with balustrade, with fenestration similar to the front to road. INTERIOR: largely intact. Purpose-designed Minton tile floor to hall; doors with 4 bolection panels, and one of 6 panels to cellars with brick barrel-vaulting and wine-bins; panelled embrasures and dados, well-preserved stair; plaster wall-panelling and ceiling in front left room and good right front room with restored decoration; cast-iron features. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the garden retains the plan and features, other than greenhouse, as designed by Edward Kemp and illustrated in his "How to Lay Out a Garden", 3rd Edition 1858. Stone steps down from house-level to upper terrace; semicircular stone-walled viewing platform at house level, east; separate flights of 14 and 24 steps, west and east, to middle terrace, the west steps having winders through two 90 degree turns and the east steps encircling the viewing platform; flight of 20 stone steps through rockery between middle and lower terraces; bedrock cliff west of lower garden, with evidence of Gothick arch; kerb to small circular pool; formerly heated wall along north boundary of garden; greenhouse foundations. The quality of exterior and interior and their relation to the contemporary garden make this item probably the most complete example of a C19 suburban house in Chester. Listing NGR: SJ4127066027