Monument record 11200 - Hoole House country house and park

Hoole House was a small country house built on the Hoole Road and held by Lady Broughton in the 19th century. It was recorded on historic Ordnance Survey maps from the late 19th century until the late 20th century when the site was redeveloped as modern housing.

<1> Ordnance Survey, 1872-1875, Metric Ten Foot Scale Town Plan of Chester (Maps and Plans). SCH6780.

<2> Ordnance Survey, 1871-1882, Ordnance Survey County Series (Epoch 1) 25 inch to 1 mile - Cheshire (Maps and Plans). SCH2462.

<3> Loudon, J.C., 1850, The Villa Gardener (Book). SCH6932.

The house as designed in 1850 comprised a three storey Georgian style mansion with two adjacent wings and a conservatory at the front. The house was accessed from a curving drive from the main road past the entrance and on to the stable yard in the south east corner of the site. The grounds included a kitchen garden, flower garden, orchard and pond

<4> Coles C, 2003, Supporting the medical war effort: Chester's War Hospitals (Article in Journal). SCH6129.

t was used during World War I as a convalescent home but has since been demolished.

<5> Cheshire Gardens Trust, 2011 onwards, Research and Recording Report, Hoole House (Report). SCH6655.

Hoole House was built about 1760 by William Hamilton “on land formerly purchased from Roger Comberbach”and adjacent to Hamilton’s own seat at Hoole Lodge. Hamilton leased out Hoole House as a country residence located at a convenient distance from the city of Chester.

By 1810 the lessee was Brigadier General Broughton of Doddington Hall. In 1814 the lease was transferred to his wife Lady Eliza Broughton (1772-1857).

She employed Chester’s leading architect Thomas Harrison to design conservatories as well as a camellia-house and a geranium-house on the W and S elevations of the house.

Between 1826 and 1834, Lady Elizabeth Broughton created an extraordinary garden at Hoole House. A lawn studded with 27 round flower beds was bounded on 3 sides by a rockery, up to 10 m high, modelled on a scene in the Alps and planted with more than 70 different genera of plants.

Through articles in several of his publications, J.C. Loudon brought this rockery and ‘gardenesque’ flower garden to the attention of the British gardening public. Historic maps show that the layout of Lady Broughton’s gardens remained intact until c.1954, when the then owner, Hoole Urban District Council, built council houses in the grounds.

Hoole House, and possibly also the rockery, survived until 1972, when they were demolished and replaced with a new Hoole House of 36 flats for elderly people managed by Sanctuary Housing.

Principal remaining features:
One cedar tree in a private garden, documented 1913 and the Tree Preservation Orders lists 11 trees. The majority are in the former N garden:
1 Ash, 1 Yew, 1 Cedar, 3 Oaks, 4 Hornbeams, and one large Cedar on the site of the former rockery