Description

MANCHESTER

SJ89SE WILMSLOW ROAD, Didsbury
698-1/9/678 (East side)
25/02/52 Parrs Wood House

GV II*

Country house, now student hostel. Probably late C18; altered.
Scored stucco, hipped slate roof. Square main block facing
west with 2 unequal service wings on north side. Two storeys
and 3 bays plus a 3-window service range to the left, with
plinth, 1st-floor band, and cornice below eaves level, all
carried round. The principal element is symmetrical, with a
pedimented centre which has a prominent bowed porch at ground
floor with engaged wooden Tuscan columns and antae, a triglyph
frieze with oxen skull metopes, cornice with wrought-iron
balustrade, a round-headed doorway with 9-panel door and plain
fanlight, and curved sashed windows. These and all other
sashed windows have margin panes. The ground floor has large
tripartite sashes in segmental blank arches; the 1st floor has
a sashed window in the centre flanked by coved niches, a
similar window to the left and a blind window to the right.
The service wing to the left, which breaks forward, has 3
similar sashes on each floor and a flat-roofed porch attached
to the corner, with a round-headed doorway which has a
fanlight with radiating glazing bars. Various ridge chimneys.
The 5-window south front has a central 2-storey 3-window bow
with a cast-iron balcony to 1st floor supported by very
slender iron columns, and fenestration otherwise matching the
front. The east side, a 7+4 window range, has (inter alia) a
single-storey 3-window bow at the south end, a pedimented
centre to the front of the service wing at the north end,
sashed windows like the others (and a C20 external corridor
attached at ground floor). Interior: entrance vestibule with
diamond-pattern marble paving, 2 mahogany panelled doors in
each side, and a principal doorway with classical architrave;
central staircase hall illuminated by a domed skylight and
containing a flying imperial staircase with half-landings
carried on Tuscan columns, Ionic screens to the landing with
rosette frieze and dentilled cornice, doorways with
architraves including relief panels depicting classical scenes
of rural life; fine decoration in south and east rooms,
including fireplaces (one with Ionic columns, the other with
herms), moulded plaster friezes and modillioned cornices;
elliptical room at 1st floor formerly similar to Cupola Room
at Heaton Hall, but decoration recently collapsed. History:
may have been designed by a member of the Wyatt family; was
owned by Richard Farington, brother of the diarist Joseph
Farington, a frequent visitor until his accidental death in
Didsbury church in 1821.

Listing NGR: SJ8564890302

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Parrs Wood House at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7139863

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

• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  Old House Care and Repair