Compton Hall And Adjoining Former Stable Block

Compton Hall is a house, built around 1845, and later used as a hospice. It was designed by Edward Banks, with interior design work undertaken by William Morris and Co between 1895 and 1896. The building is constructed of brick, with ashlar dressings, and later stuccoed on three elevations, and has a hipped slate roof. It follows a double-depth plan and is in an Italianate style. The house is two storeys, with a three-window range and a recessed centre. Features include a plain plinth, a first-floor sill band, a dentilled cornice, wide eaves, and rusticated quoin strips. The windows have shouldered architraves and four-pane horns, with keystones to the ground-floor windows and eared architraves to the first-floor windows. The central round-headed entrance features panelled pilasters, an archivolt, a triple keystone and a recessed half-glazed door. Several cross-axial stacks are present.

The left return has two large bow windows with three architraved, horned sashes of 24 panes, along with cornices and balustrades. The first floor here features two round windows. The rear elevation has a 24-pane sash window on the ground floor, a round-headed stair window with a small-pane sash above the entrance, a side light, a later inserted entrance, and a 20th-century first-floor extension raised on stilts to the left. The right return is a plain five-window range, with windows having wedge lintels over 12-pane sashes.

The adjoining stable wing has been altered, features opposed segmental-headed cart entrances, tile hanging to a jettied first floor, and a timber lantern.

The interior rooms were decorated by Morris and Co. The through-passage hall has stone flagging, deal panelling, a cornice with egg-and-dart, architraved doors, and a staircase with symmetrical balusters. Notable rooms on the left include a front room with oak-grained deal panelling, a dentilled cornice, a fireplace with Ionic columns, and embossed paper to the ceiling. A study features shelving, walnut panelling, a fireplace with de Morgan tiles. The Stephen Morton room on the rear has oak panelling, a fireplace with Doric columns, tiles, and flanking shelving. The walls of this room were originally adorned with Burne-Jones' Holy Grail tapestries, which are now located in Birmingham City Art Gallery. A painted ceiling is also present. It is said that Morris designed his last wallpaper, called "Compton," for the house.