1288

 

II*  

Designated  

03/12/1973  

26/11/1998  

Queen Anne's Cottage  

 

Wrexham  

Chirk  

Wrexham  

Whitehurst  

328744  

339984  

E  

The cottage is located within Whitehurst Gardens, which are accessed directly from the A5 200m N of the roundabout at the N end of Chirk.  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

 

Whitehurst Gardens, also known variously as Black Park Garden and Chirk Castle Garden, were laid out c1651 at considerable personal expense by Sir Thomas Myddleton II (1586-1666) as a pleasure garden for himself and in which to entertain important visitors on the Holyhead Road. The walled area extended to 12 acres. The Duke of Beaufort, Lord President of Wales made a halt here when passing through Wales in 1684, and describes the 'walled Garden of Trees, Plants, Flowers and Herbs of the greatest rarity, as well forreigne as of Great Britain, Orrenge and Lemon Trees, the sensitive Plant, &c, where, in a Banquetting-house , a Collation of choise Fruit and Wines was lodged by the sayd Sr RICHARD MYDDLETON to entertein his Grace in this his flourishing Plantation'. Major General James Berry stayed in 1656, and later circuit judges found it an amenable place to stay. The cottage, which is clearly shown on Thomas Badeslade's 1742 engraving of Chirk Castle, may originally have served as one of the smaller banqueting houses recorded, or a summer house, on the lowest of four concentric terraces, with direct access from a boathouse below to the 3-sided canal or fishponds. The building later became a fruit store and is now a dwelling house.  

The building is constructed in a dark highly fired plum-coloured brick, with a pyramidal slate roof with lead hips, rising to a turned oak finial. The entrance lay on the NE side, of which a rubbed brick lintel with basket arch soffit survives, the opening partly built up to include a smaller timber door with a small light at the side. Timber paned windows, the principal ones with segmental headed overlights and all with similar brick lintels with curved soffits, one original larger oak window of 2 lights and 3 lights above a transome remains, blocked, on the SE face. Two small gabled dormers and two brick chimney stacks on the rear.  

One cell, 3 floors with the entrance to the middle floor containing the living room, with a small corner stair up to the bedrooms, corner fireplace, twin slightly chamfered ceiling beams. Two bedrooms. Stair descending to toilet, bathroom and kitchen, which opens to the lowest level of the gardens.  

Included at Grade II* as an important and rare example of an unusual type of garden building, set as a focus within the highly important gardens at Whitehurst, and which is well documented in archive.