Park Lodge

Cadw's description

Location

Set back from and above the N side of Tan-y-Fron, reached by short private drive behind modern houses.

History

Built c1926, when it was offered for sale but had not yet been inhabited. By Longden and Venables, architects of Hanley, Leek and Macclesfield. The contractor was John Laing & Co of Liverpool.

The ground floor originally consisted of loggia, gallery hall, dining room, lounge, smoke room, gun room, cloak room and 'dark room'. A separate unit, with its own stairs, comprised kitchen, offices, and 2 sitting rooms. Beneath it was a 2-car garage. The house was built of pebble-dashed brick and featured a Kentish style roof. Inside it had hardwood and terrazzo floors. Roof beams from Lathom Hall, Liverpool, were re-used in the gallery hall.

The house was subdivided in the late C20, the main part of the house being divided into 3 units, with the service end making a 4th separate dwelling.

Exterior

A large Arts-and-Crafts villa, mainly of 1 storey with attic, and basement on the R side where the ground level is lower. Walls are pebble-dashed painted white, under a steep hipped tile roof. A cruciform shaped brick stack is at the R end. Tall stacks with triple diagonal shafts rise from the eaves on the L side of the gabled bay L of centre and the L side of the central bow window. The front is asymmetrical. The entrance is L of centre, in a 3-bay porch and former loggia with reed-moulded band between storeys and similar moulding to the parapet. The loggia has 3 round arches, the centre and L now infilled with glazed panels and doors (to Nos 1 and 1b), the R-hand still open to the main entrance. The main entrance (now No 2) has segmental-headed double doors with studs and vertical ribs.

Windows are wooden casements, mostly incorporating leaded glazing. Above the central bay of the loggia is a canted 2-light dormer window under a hipped roof.
To the L of the loggia, but set well back from the L end, is a projecting 2-storey bay with higher eaves line. It has a weatherboarded gable on brackets, and attic projecting on similar brackets below a reed-moulded band. It has a 6-light ground-floor window and 4-light attic window with shutters. In the R-hand side wall is an original ornate cast iron rainwater head and down pipe.

To the R of the entrance is a bow window carried up above the eaves of the main house, with stone sills and deep boarded eaves to a swept roof with apex finial. It has central tripartite casement windows in both ground floor and attic, with transoms in the lower storey, and similar 2-light outer windows These ground-floor windows have replacement plain glass to the casements but retain original marginal glazing above the transoms. Further R the ground level is lower, and the elevation has projecting boarded eaves slightly lower than the loggia. It has two 3-light windows to basement and ground floors, with original shutters with strap hinges. The basement has a smooth-rendered sill band. Two hipped roof dormers have 2-light windows.

The L end elevation has a polygonal 2-light 2-storey canted bay window under a hipped roof. In the R end elevation the basement has an original wide folding garage door on runners, flanked by shallow buttresses with offsets. Further R is a splayed round-headed panel door (No 3), which abuts the steep bank at the back of the building. Directly above it is a terrace with a half-glazed door flanked by casement windows. Above the garage is a 4-light ground floor window. Two hipped roof dormers have 2-light windows, of which the R-hand has replacement plain glazing.

The rear, with gabled projections to the L end and R of centre, has casement windows but faces a steep bank.

Reason for designation

Listed for its special architecural interest as an especially fine and distinctive Arts-and-Crafts house retaining original character and detail.