More information : Museum. Commissioned before 1895 by Nathaniel George Clayton, nephew of John Clayton who owned the Roman site of Chesters and began the excavations; opened in 1903, after the deaths of Nathaniel and his son John Bertram, for Mrs Nathaniel George Clayton by R Norman Shaw. Coarse local sandstone, rock-faced and snecked, with ashlar dressings. Graduated Lakeland slate roof with long glazed panels, ashlar stack.
One tall storey, 5 bays, with 2-bay west wing forming L-plan. Extended pedimented west porch has segment-headed door of 6 fielded panels in rusticated architrave, the upper voussoir-like rustications rising to bracketed stone cornice hood. Cornice continues around porch which has narrow left bay with small window. Quoins to porch and to all salient angles. Long elevations blank; windows in gable ends. South end has 2 windows, 1 blocked, and an oculus above. Windows in rusticated architraves with ovolo-moulded cills, friezes and cornices over; oculus in architrave. Deeply-overhanging eaves on long oak braces resting on stone corbels; chimney on gable peak. Eaves overhang even more on long elevations, the outer edges supported on similar long braces. North gabe end has oculus and 1 window; west end of wing has oculus, window and door. All openings except the north window are in architraves and all but the oculi are rusticated.
Interior: Entrance lobby leads to main interior space with hammer-beamed boarded roof; similar roof in wing. Corner fireplaces at west angles of main room and back-to-back in the L: architraved openings with swell frieze and cornice, and corniced overmantel block. Good half- glazed panelled internal doors and 6-panel back door in wing. Corbelled stone shelf, around 3 outer walls of main room, inserted circa 1905 to hold Roman sculptured pieces. |