The Knoll

The Knoll

House, now a resource centre for people with learning disabilities. Built in 1879 and designed by Hubert Austin for himself, it was restored around 1990. The building is constructed of red brick with some tile-hanging and half-timbering, and has a plain tile roof.

The house is two storeys plus attic. The garden front features a one-bay cross-wing on the left, where the ground-floor brickwork was rebuilt in the late twentieth century. On the ground and first floors are paired glazing bar sashes, with the first-floor example set under a segmental head. The attic window has a similar segmental head, timber mullions and transoms, and sits above a string course of moulded brickwork that is continued around the verges to form a pediment.

The main part of the facade contains two bay windows with timber frames and tile-hanging between storeys. The left-hand bay window rises three storeys with straight sides and timber mullioned and transomed windows with leaded glazing. The central part of its ground-floor window is treated as an Ipswich window with a semicircular arch rising from the transom. The projecting gable above has bargeboards, and on the main roof ridge sits a viewing platform set diagonally with a timber balustrade. The right-hand bay window is canted and extends two storeys with glazing bar sashes. The roof is hipped with deep moulded coving at the eaves and a small segmental-headed attic dormer.

To the left of the left-hand bay window is a narrow bay containing a tall window that lights the back stair at first and second floor level. On the ground floor is a doorway with segmental head and a small window to its left. Chimneys project to the left of the viewing platform and from the right-hand gable.

The entrance front has two gabled projections. The cross-wing at the right includes a first-floor oriel window with curved sides and a four-light casement above. To the left is a three-storey porch with a jettied half-timbered third storey, a timber bellcote on the ridge, and a chimney on the right-hand return wall. The doorway has a moulded brick architrave and cornice. Between these wings is a large stair window. Set back to the left, the main part of the building displays a dated plaque reading "AHF 1879" between single cross casements, with a large canted dormer window above and a single sash to the left below.

Interior

The entrance hall is divided by an oak screen partly formed by the balustrade of the lowest flight of the main stair. The stair newels are carried upwards as turned posts supporting an oak cornice with pulvinated frieze. Between the posts the architrave of the entablature is arched upwards in a semicircle, a motif repeated across the remainder of the hall with pendant bosses instead of posts. The stair has splat balusters. The house contains nine fireplaces with Delftware tiles. The right-hand ground-floor room viewed from the garden front has a plasterwork frieze. The central room features an oak overmantel in seventeenth-century style incorporating some seventeenth-century wood.