County Hall, Chester

Originally Cheshire County Council held its meetings at the Crewe Arms Hotel, conveniently located near to Crewe station in Crewe.[1] After deciding that this arrangement was inadequate for their needs in the context of the increasing responsibilities of county councils, county leaders chose to procure a new county headquarters. The site selected – immediately to the south east of the old shire hall on the north bank of the River Dee – had previously been occupied by a late 18th century prison designed by Thomas Harrison, which had been demolished in 1902.[2][3]

The new building was designed by E. Mainwaring Parkes, the County Architect, in the Neo-Georgian style. Construction started in 1938 but the Second World War caused delays, and the new county hall was only officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 11 July 1957.[4] The principal room was the council chamber.[5]

Following the abolition of the County Council in March 2009, the new unitary authority, Cheshire West and Chester Council chose to occupy a modern building on the site of a former police headquarters and overlooking the Chester Racecourse.[6][7][8] County Hall became surplus to requirements and was sold to the University of Chester for £10.3 million.[9][10] It was then converted for educational use as the University's Riverside Campus so that it could accommodate the university's Faculties of Health and Social Care and Education and Children's Services.[5] The council chamber was converted into a large lecture theatre.[5]

The design has a symmetrical main frontage with seventeen bays facing onto Castle Drive with the end bays projecting forwards. The central section features a portico on the ground floor containing a doorway flanked by columns; there is a window on the first floor and another on the second floor again flanked by columns which support an entablature with two finials above.[5] Pevsner's verdict was that the building was "not an ornament to the riverside view".[11]