Description

CHESTER CITY (EM)

SJ46NW DEE BANKS
1932-1/2/59 (West side)
10/01/72 Walmoor House
(Formerly Listed as:
DEE BANKS
Walmoor Hill)

II*

House, later girls school, then County Fire Service
headquarters. 1896. By John Douglas for himself. Snecked red
sandstone with tooled surfaces; grey-green slate roof.
T-shaped, in Elizabethan manner, main wing crowning steep
Dee-side slope.
EXTERIOR: 2 and 3 storeys. The east, entrance front is
composed as a squat 3-storey tower, left, with corbelled
octagonal stair-turret against 2-storey projecting porch with
oriel above basket-arch of entrance; a 2-storey range between
porch and incomplete servants' wing, right; crenellated tower
at junction of wings; stone-mullioned leaded windows;
parapets, some crenellated; hipped roofs. Stringcourses,
sparingly used. The north face of the servants' wing is simply
expressed.
The west face to the Dee, set on a precipitous bank, has
canted bay windows to end of north wing of basement and 3
storeys; octagonal tower rising to 4 storeys at junction of
wings; 3-window range of 2 storeys; 3 storey south bay with
large canted projection to outer corner holding large
mullioned and transomed windows to ground and first floors and
small second-floor windows.
INTERIOR retains many features including the principal
reception room, now conference room, the stair and notably the
oratory in the chamber above the main entrance.
The plan is foreshadowed on a smaller scale by the former
rectory of St Thomas's Church, Parkgate Road (qv) on a similar
westward-facing valley-brow site, 1880; his unexecuted ideal
design for such a site, larger than Walmoor and a schloss, was
published in British Architect, 68, 1907.
(Hubbard E: The Work of John Douglas: London: 1991-: 7-9; 189;
RCHME: Historic Building Report - Walmoor Hill, Dee Banks,
Chester: Swindon: 1997-).

Listing NGR: SJ4205365917

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Walmoor Hill at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7963541

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

• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas