Mason Croft And Attached Gate And Walls

Mason Croft is a town house, dating from circa 1724, and extended in 1725, now used by the University of Birmingham. A further wing was added to the left end in the 1870s for Trinity College, later converted into a music room around 1905. The house was originally built for Nathaniel Mason, a lawyer. It is constructed of brick with ashlar dressings and has a hipped roof, renewed with tile and brick stacks to the rear. The building follows a double-depth plan and is of Georgian style.

The main facade is two storeys with an attic, featuring a symmetrical seven-window range, with a two-window addition to the left. A single-storey, three-window range with a gabled cross wing sits at the far left. A brick plinth and a platt band run above the ground floor, and rusticated ashlar quoins are present, along with a modillioned wood cornice at the top. The main entrance features an eared architrave with a key and pulvinated frieze, and a cornice. It has a heavy pegged frame surrounding the stained-glass overlight and battened door. Windows are 12-pane sashes with rubbed brick flat arches. Three dormers are present, each with a two-light small-paned casement. The left addition incorporates two brick platt bands and a top stone-coped brick cornice. A circa-1900 hipped bay window has a four-light transomed window with leaded glazing, and an end stack. The music room has a canopy entrance to the left of two cross-casement windows, and hipped bay windows with a one:five:one-light transomed casement, paired with a three-light casement above. There are truncated lateral stacks.

Stone-coped brick walls flank a gate with Tuscan-style ashlar piers dating from the 1740s. These piers have cornices and ball finials, and support a plank gate. Dormers are present to the returns. The rear features a gabled wing, a tall 20th-century wing, and a circa-1900 conservatory to the right. Later additions are present at the right end, and an entrance has a doorcase with reeded pilasters, a cast-iron trellis porch, and a six-flush-panel door. Rainwater heads are dated 1735 and 1745.

The interior features a room to the left end, furnished circa 1900, with panelling incorporating tapering pilasters, a corniced ceiling, and elliptical arches leading to a window and an inglenook fireplace with a side window and a small bay; a cupboard sits above a pointed arch with a copper hood. A room to the right end contains a Jacobean-style fireplace. An open-well staircase has a closed string, twisted-on-vase balusters, square newels with pendants, and a ramped handrail. A first-floor room to the left has a fielded-panelled dado, a 19th-century fireplace with a later copper hood, and possible De Morgan tiles. Other rooms feature chamfered beams, 19th-century fireplaces, and two-panel and eight-panel doors. The attic contains a 17th-century door. The music room's roof has curved principals to the collar-truss, a large segmental-headed fireplace with a cartouche bearing the initials MC and BV, flowers, coronae, and wainscotting to the older rear room.

Mason Croft was the home of Marie Corelli, novelist and conservationist, from 1901 until her death in 1924. The gate piers are separately listed.