142 Foregate Street is a building on the south side of Foregate Street,

Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's coun ...

, England. It 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, a ...

as a designated Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

History

It was built in 1884 for Chester City Council as a

police station A police station (sometimes called a "station house" or just "house") is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, al ...

for the Cheshire County Constabulary, and was designed by the local architect John Douglas. It was used as the police headquarters until 1967 when a new building for the purpose was constructed on a different site. In the early 2000s it was being used as an

occupational health Occupational safety and health (OSH), also commonly referred to as occupational health and safety (OHS), occupational health, or occupational safety, is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at ...

unit for

Cheshire County Council Cheshire County Council was the county council of Cheshire. Founded on 1 April 1889, it was officially dissolved on 31 March 2009, when it and its districts were superseded by two unitary authorities; Cheshire West and Chester and Cheshire East. ...

Architecture

The building is constructed in red Ruabon brick with stone bands and

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta i ...

and stone dressings, and a grey slate roof. It has three storeys plus an attic. On the ground floor two steps lead to an arched doorway. To the left of this are three arched

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 and to the right is a

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a ca ...

. The middle and top storeys contain six two-light

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...

ed and transomed windows in pairs. The

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aest ...

is stepped and contains a row of six windows, over which are two more windows. Between these is the date 1884 in brick moulding. In the apex of the gable is the

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the fe ...

of the police force. Douglas' biographer

Edward Hubbard Edward Horton Hubbard (2 July 1937 – 31 May 1989) was an English architectural historian who worked with Nikolaus Pevsner in compiling volumes of the ''Buildings of England''. He also wrote the definitive biography of John Douglas, and played ...

considered that the frontage of this building was "more specifically Flemish in design than any other of Douglas' buildings".

References

{{Authority control Grade II listed buildings in Chester John Douglas buildings Government buildings completed in 1884 Infrastructure completed in 1884 Buildings and structures in Chester

History

Architecture

See also

References