Description

TQ 2780 NW CITY OF WESTMINSTER CLARENDON PLACE W2
66/9
Chester House
10.4.75
GV II

Villa-town house. 1925-26 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott for himself. Grey
brick with sparing stone dressings, ferro-concrete floors; pantile roof.
Restrained carefully proportioned stripped Renaissance design. Set
back behind shallow "area" garden. Low 2 storeys, effectively read as
1½ storeys to centre but reverse proportion to wings. 7 bays wide
including broad wings with hipped roofs, slightly advanced from ground
floor but with the 1st floor between them set well back to form
terrace. Central ashlar dressed doorway with shallow pediment.
Slightly recessed box-framed glazing bar sashes under flat gauged
arches, tripartite to ground floor of wings and, on their 1st floor,
fully developed as 3 separate sashes grouped as 2 narrow ones flanking
main central one and giving on to "pergola" balconies. The returns of
wings to terrace have 2 light windows and there are 2 tripartite windows
to the recessed centre. Stone plinth, ground floor sill band, and
fluted brick and stone coped terrace parapet. Moulded stone crowning
cornice with eaves resting on blocking. Elegantly proportioned chimney
stacks with shallow stone cappings. Interior, with very restrained use of
simplified classical details and mouldings, has a functionally planned
ground floor incorporating garage in north east corner, kitchen, former
servants' sitting room and former play room and nursery, the only
reception rooms being the off-centre T-plan hall to right of entrance
lobby and the dining room by the kitchen to left; the staircase rises
on the cross axis of the hall to serve the piano nobile reception rooms
and principal bedrooms giving on to the terrace - some redecoration
but otherwise unaltered.

Representative British Architects: C. H. Reilly
Twentieth Century Houses: Raymond McGrath
Architectural Review

Listing NGR: TQ2717280925

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Chester House at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q26513986

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)