Listed Building: COUNTY COUNCIL EDUCATION OFFICES AND WALLS TO SOUTH (1376381)

CHESTER CITY (IM) SJ4065NE ST MARY'S HILL 595-1/6/345 (North side) 10/01/72 County Council Education Offices and walls to south (Formerly Listed as: ST MARY'S HILL City Education Department Offices (formerly the Old Rectory)) GV II Parsonage house and coachyard, now offices. C18; 1835 attributed to Thomas Jones, in Tudor Revival style, with older rear wing. Irregular bond brown brick with grey slate roofs; Georgian rear wing. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 6-bay front. One bay north of the coach entrance, which projects; a window bay; projecting porch bay; 2 window bays. Flush stone plinth, increasing in depth as ground falls to south. Window openings have splayed reveals of painted stone, with 4-pane casements to the first storey. The coach entry has framed, boarded and studded double doors with postern in stone-dressed Tudor archway with hoodmould. The porch has framed, boarded and studded door in stone-dressed Tudor archway with hoodmould. The second storey has stone-coped gables with kneelers and pineapple finials to the coachway and porch bays and stone-dressed dormer gables to the window bays; 4-pane casements in north bay and coachway bay, 6-pane casements in other bays. Plinthed chimneys, of 3 divided flues at north end of ridge and three of 2 flues set diagonally on ridge and south gable-end. The south garden face is Georgian with brick bands and flush sashes with flush sills and cambered heads: the first storey has a 12-pane sash and 3 sashes now of 4 panes in the canted bay, east; the second storey has two 12-pane sashes plus three 12-pane sashes in the canted bay. The face to the former coachyard has recessed sashes of 12 panes and of 4 rows of 5 panes. INTERIOR: has plaster panels in corridors and stairwell, probably of 1835, an L shaped open-well closed-string stair having newels with ovolo arrises and 3 stout balusters with closely-spaced rings of grooves. Cornices in passages; panelled embrasures to windows in lower storey of canted bay; those to the upper storey of the bay also have eared architraves; two 5-panel doors, one fielded. The brick wall with stone coping and boarded door to St Mary's Hill south of the building and the retaining wall of sandstone with brick parapet to the garden terrace south of the building are included in this item. This item forms a well-composed group with St Mary's Hill School and Cottage (qv) and the St Mary's Centre (qv). (The Buildings of England: Hubbard E & Pevsner N: Cheshire: Harmondsworth: 1971-: 152). Listing NGR: SJ4057765866