Source/Archive record SCH8433 - Mostyn House School, Parkgate: Significance & Impact Assessment

Heritage assessment comprising desk-based research, photographic record, condition statement and statement of significance, produced in 2013 for Mostyn House School, Parkgate, prior to a programme of refurbishment and adaptation of the buildings for residential use, including some demolition and new development. The school chapel is Grade II* listed and most of the school buildings, Grade II listed. The site is also located within the Parkgate Conservation Area. The school developed from 1855 when it was first established in the Mostyn Arms Hotel by Edward Price who leased the hotel. However, for most of its life it was associated with the Grenfell farmily who ran it from 1863 until its closure in 2010. Initially it operated as a boys' boarding school until the 1980s when it became co-educational. In 1989 it became a day school and nursery, prep school and senior school with the former dormitories adapted for teaching. It consists of a roughly L-plan arrangement of buildings, that expanded from the original hotel south along the Parade and eastwards to the rear. The distinctive buildings were strongly influenced by the taste and priorities of the Grenfell headmasters. A.G.Grenfell extended the school dramatically in the 1890s, including the addition of a covered playground, 2-storey rear wing, dormitory built over service wing, gymnasium, swimming pool, 4-storey front range, electric light plant, chapel, cottage extended eastwards for headmaster's house, water tower and 3-storey block for master's rooms, 'Jarrah' a master's house, and a theatre. He hired architects Frederick Fraser & Warburton of Warrington for The New Cottage and chapel; it is not known whether they also advised on other additions. Late 20th century additions to the school included a 2-storey block for art and music, rebuilding of the swimming pool, incorporating changing rooms, also re-modelling of the gymnasium. A World War II air raid shelter, 18 bays long and built in 1939, lies underneath the west part of the school playing field. In 2006-7 it was adapted for use as a shooting range. A condition survey of the shelter was undertaken in 2012 and concluded that the condition of the the concrete and steel roof was a cause for concern, as was water ingress. The school is considered of high significance for its historic value as an example of a small privately-run boarding school, established in the mid nineteenth century, also for its association with A.G.Grenfell, Victorian maverick and explorer. It is also the birthplace of Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell , medical missionary and social reformer. It is also of interest due to the eighteenth century history of the site when there was an inn here. Locally it is recognised as one of the most important building complexes in the Parkgate conservation area, with the distinctive appearance of the black and white timber-framed frontage, along with other timber-framed elements, highly regarded, both aesthetically and also as part of a long tradition of revival-style architecture echoing Cheshire's medieval timber-framed buildings.