THE Gloucester diocesan office will return next yr to Hillfield House, the Denmark Road mansion in town of Gloucester which it first occupied within the Nineteen Twenties, and which has been in the marketplace for £2 million.
It can be owned outright by Gloucester diocesan board of finance (DBF) and can bring all of the diocesan teams together under one roof, including the bishops, archdeacons, diocesan board of education, and Gloucester Academies Trust.
They are all currently in rented offices within the cathedral close. As the cathedral needs extra space for its own staff because the second phase of its Project Pilgrim gets under way, the diocesan administration has been looking for a everlasting home for a while.
“We are pleased to share the news that plans at the moment are under approach to relocate Church House back to Hillfield House,” the diocesan secretary, Benjamin Preece Smith, said. “We love being within the cathedral close, but understand the time has come to maneuver on. We know that our partnership with the cathedral will proceed to thrive as they appear to the longer term of town’s best asset.
“We realise Hillfield House is a big property for town, and we sit up for welcoming people to return and see us there after we relocate next summer. We hope to make the home a part of town’s Heritage Open Day event next yr.”
Accessible parking, lavatories, meeting rooms, office space, and kitchen space on the bottom floor would all improve the flexibility to welcome visitors, he said.
The historic house, with its distinctive tower, was in-built 1847, and has at various times been a family home, a wartime hospital, a driving-test centre, and Trading Standards’ offices.
The agents’ description of the property says that it “overflows with reception rooms, all set around or off a gigantean [sic] double height reception hall, complete with plasterwork mouldings, Doric pillars and a hearth. A large cantilevered staircase results in a galleried landing with a logia with intricate stained glass picture windows commissioned by Charles Walker depicting the war of the barons.”
