Tettenhall Court

Tettenhall Court

A large suburban house built in 1913-1914 to designs by the architect William Weller (1877-1960), executed in the Domestic Revival style. The house is constructed in brick and timber frame with stone ground-floor dressings, plain clay tile roofs, and brick stacks.

The main range runs parallel to Wergs Road in an east-west direction, with an additional range to the rear, creating an irregular overall plan. The principal rooms are arranged pinwheel fashion around a large central reception hall. The front forecourt is bounded on one side by a garage or coach house, which adjoins the house at a 45-degree angle, and on the other by a screen wall and privy block set at a similar angle. A service court lies to the rear of the garage block.

The exterior displays steeply-gabled, two-storey elevations of brick with stone dressings and timber framing to some first-floor bays. Windows are stone mullioned and transomed of various numbers of lights, and timber mullioned and transomed in the timber-framed bays, all fitted with rectangular leaded casements. The cast-iron rainwater goods include hoppers with fleurs-de-lys in relief, and are dated 1914.

The entrance elevation has three irregular bays: a central, projecting, timber-framed and gabled entrance bay forming a porch over a recessed entrance on timber uprights with double doors and flanking windows; a narrow one-window bay; and a projecting bay with a double-height canted bay window tucked under the gable with applied timber framing. To the left stands a cranked bay with castellated parapet containing two nine-light windows serving a full-height room. At a 45-degree angle to the house is a covered entrance to the courtyard beyond, with a gable and applied timber framing and a pair of iron gates, linking the garage to the main house. The single-storey garage has a half-hipped roof with a gablet. This is balanced on the other side of the house by a screen wall with a covered gateway to the garden, adjoining a small single-storey building formerly housing privies.

The principal garden elevation faces south, with a main range of three gabled bays featuring applied timber framing to their gables. To the left, set back from the building plane, stands a gabled and timber-framed cross wing with square framing, carried over an open loggia at ground floor. The left return elevation has long rows of single lights to both first and second floors. To the far left, set back again with a large rectangular stack set within the plane of the elevation, is a bay set at 45 degrees to the elevation, with a two-storey polygonal bay of timber frame with large bay windows under a gable with oversailing eaves. The rear of the garage block features a timber plank pedestrian doorway alongside double plank doors for the vehicular entrance.

The interior displays an Arts and Crafts Domestic Revival scheme with extensive exposed timber and plaster decoration and architectural set pieces including deep inglenooks fitted as cosy corners in the principal rooms. Fireplaces, each different, are generally extensively carved from dark timber with metal hoods of various designs. Doors are timber, fielded with moulded panels; those to the upper floor are painted white.

The entrance porch leads into a large, double-height central reception hall, top-lit by a multi-paned flat lantern with timber mullions and transoms set into a ceiling with exposed beams and joists. A galleried landing with splat balusters between upright timbers with curved brackets runs around two sides of the hall. The rear corner extends into a partly-enclosed seating area with bench seats and panelling under the windows. The hall houses the main stair, which features a short flight of five steps with a gradual curtail to the left, then rises through two offset stages to the landing. The balustrade is formed from Jacobean-style newels with splat balusters between them. A small two-light squinch window overlooks the hall from the adjacent billiard room on the first half-landing.

The dining room has a wide canted bay window and a deep, canted inglenook with a small fire window to one side, timber-lined with a built-in fire surround and overmantel in the panelling.

The drawing room features a similar fireplace arrangement but with the fireplace projecting, the whole tucked under a low ceiling in a panelled bay. The opposite end has a second fireplace with a copper inset and heavily carved surround, terminating in a cosy corner set in the corner bay, which is set at 45 degrees to the house and fitted with bench seating and panelling.

The billiard room is a double-height space with a high, deeply-coved plaster ceiling with extensive plaster decoration and a large rectangular lantern formed from curved panels of etched glass with foliate motifs. The top lights are later replacements, with further coloured glass in the clerestory lights. The room features a low, deep fireplace bay, the division from the rest of the room marked by classical pilasters and columns with Corinthian capitals on high plinths with a plain entablature. Above is a plaster frieze depicting the story of Saint Wulfuna, after whom Wolverhampton is named. The nook contains a broad fireplace with tile inserts and built-in shelving. The decorative plaster ceiling of the inglenook includes cartouches with coloured glass. The nook is flanked by doorways with elaborate classical doorcases. One door gives access to a bathroom with an historic panelled timber partition to the WC, which includes coloured glazing.

The former service rooms are ranged at the rear of the building beyond a baize door, with the original kitchen and scullery now combined into a single space with modern fixtures and finishes. A quarry-tiled enclosed loggia forms a further working space. A pantry is lined in glazed brick.

The upper-floor rooms feature a range of modest fireplaces, each different in various historicist styles, with moulded cornices and skirtings. The principal bedrooms have bespoke built-in cupboards and storage furniture, including extensive overmantels with shelving and small glazed cupboards. The first-floor corner study has a broad fireplace with overmantel, built-in cupboards and shelving, and large folding panels creating a moveable partition allowing the room to open to incorporate the large landing space. The principal bedroom has a small two-light squinch window overlooking the hall below.

A partial basement runs under the former billiard room, containing a brick-built setlas lined in quarry tiles in a smaller room at one end, alongside a wine cellar with a batten door, and a large open workshop space.

A coach house is attached at the north-western corner of the house, with garaging and storage on the ground floor and further unimproved rooms above.