Daresbury Hall is a former Georgian

country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...

in the village of

Daresbury Daresbury is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Halton, Cheshire, England. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 246. History The name means "Deor's fortification", derived from an Old English personal name and the word ''burh' ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. It was built in 1759 for George Heron. The house is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

as a designated Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. The mansion was badly damaged by fire in 2016.

History

Built in 1759 for George Heron, the hall descended in the Heron family until 1850, when it became the property of Samuel Beckett Chadwick. By 1892 it had been acquired by

Sir Gilbert Greenall ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as part o ...

, later Baron Daresbury. During the Second World War it was used as a military hospital and for some years from 1955 by a charity, now known as

Scope Scope or scopes may refer to: People with the surname * Jamie Scope (born 1986), English footballer * John T. Scopes (1900–1970), central figure in the Scopes Trial regarding the teaching of evolution Arts, media, and entertainment * CinemaS ...

, as a residential home for handicapped people. It became semi-derelict after being bought by a millionaire who died before restoration could take place. In April 2015, a large cannabis farm containing six hundred plants with an estimated street value of £750,000 was discovered in an annex at the estate. In 2016 there were plans to partly demolish and convert the house but in June of that year the empty building was badly damaged by fire.

Description

The house is constructed in a Georgian style in brown brick with stone dressings, and has a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

roof. It has three storeys and seven

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

with a stone

plinth A pedestal or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In civil engineering, it is also called ''basement''. The minimum height o ...

and stone bands between the storeys. Framing the middle three bays are rusticated

pilasters In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

, and similar

quoins Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th-century encyclopedia, ...

at the corners. All the windows are

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s. Along the top of the house is a plain

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

, with a

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

above the central three bays.

References

External links

* {{coord, 53.33798, -2.62575, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Country houses in Cheshire Houses completed in 1759 Georgian architecture in Cheshire Grade II* listed buildings in Cheshire

History

Description

See also

References

Further reading

External links