2 Holt Hall (including the Peking Garden)

Cadw's description

Location

Situated on the W side of Castle Street, set back from the road with tarmaced forecourt.

History

Early C18 town house, the building appears to have been extended at a later date and is now subdivided into two houses. Palmer mentions it as having C17 origins and it is also claimed that the original family which built the house were migrants from Chester called Dodd. Palmer also states that a wooden carved mitred head which formed a bench end at the Parish Church of St. Chad was removed to Holt Hall in 1872 to form part of a staircase.

Exterior

Early C18, 2 storeys with central pediment, rendered and painted white, slate roof. Later? projecting flat roofed porch, lintel with stone voussoirs. 2 symmetrically placed wooden bay windows. To left C20 door but with original lintel with stone voussoirs and raised keystone. String course to first floor. First floor four windows, three placed centrally fourth to the right, all with original lintels with stone voussoirs and raised keystones. Two small oeil-de-boef windows and one blocked oeil-de-boef window in the centre of the pediment.

Interior

Only partial inspection possible at time of re-survey (March 1996)

Reason for designation

Listed as a surviving example of an early eighteenth-century town house.