Dale Cross Grange with attached service buildings and entrance gates

Dale Cross Grange with attached service buildings and entrance gates

A house built in 1899–1900 by the Birmingham architectural firm Crouch & Butler for Frank Rabone. The house exemplifies the Domestic Revival style, constructed of red brick laid in English bond with narrow-stud timber framing, ashlar dressings, roughcast rendering, and tiled roofs with brick stacks. The ground floor rooms and hall are oak-panelled, with oak blockwork covering the floors of principal rooms and tiled flooring to the kitchen corridor.

The house comprises two storeys with attics on multiple levels, arranged on a north-west to south-east orientation. The plan consists of two parallel ranges, each under a pitched roof, with a central cross-wing. Service buildings, a motor house, and staff accommodation are attached to the north-east, arranged around a courtyard.

The exterior is characterised by steeply-pitched roofs with tall brick chimneystacks and informally-arranged timber-framed and roughcast elevations. The principal front is timber-framed to the left bay and the projecting gabled central bay, between which sits a broad brick chimney with a small leaded opening at ground floor level, an ashlar opening and offset at first-floor level, and diamond stacks above. The central projecting gable contains three small ground-floor openings and an original large mullioned and transomed stair window above. The right of the façade is brick at ground floor and roughcast rendered at first floor, with openings breaking through the eaves and a three-light dormer window to the roof. The entrance comprises an oak gothic portico under a tiled roof, with the carved inscription DULCE DOMUM to the lintel and further decorative mouldings. The panelled front door has an ashlar architrave and broken pediment, with an iron bell-pull and iron boot-scraper set in the wall to its right.

The north-east service range comprises a red brick motor house and staff accommodation. The motor house features wide double timber doors in a jowled carriage arch with strap hinges on the interior face, set within a deep, broad timber-framed gable with a cornice and attic casement. A twin diamond-shafted brick stack rises within the roof slope. To the left of the carriage arch are a kitchen door and two small pantry openings. To the right is a later twentieth-century bow window with a dormer above.

The south-east flank of the house is brick at ground floor and timber-framed above, with twin gables and brick stacks set within the valley. A bow front at ground floor level, of early to mid-twentieth-century date, is approached by three stone steps to the lawn. An angled brick buttress marks the corner to the garden front.

The garden front is asymmetric, constructed of brick with roughcast render. To the right of centre is a gabled bay with a tall mullioned and transomed hall window and a panelled door under a domed hood. Single-storey square projecting bay windows flank each side, with cast-iron rainwater hoppers dated 1900. A dormer window sits in the left roof slope. A modern single-storey brick and timber conservatory is attached to the left.

The north-west flank has a shaped gable bearing an AD 1899 datestone and a three-light casement below. Wide triple brick stacks and chimney breasts flank the gable window, beneath a tiled pitched roof. A single-storey brick wing extends from the left of this elevation, with the modern conservatory to its right.

The service courtyard is entered through the gabled carriage arch, with staff accommodation to the left and motor house to the right. The north side contains a flat-roofed brick garage and a greenhouse with low brick walls and chimneystack, both of approximately 1920s date with later alterations. The motor house and courtyard have stone and brick-laid surfaces. The accommodation is arranged over different floor heights with plain early-twentieth-century joinery including a stair but no other historic fittings.

The interior begins with an oak-panelled vestibule containing a door to a lower-level cloakroom and a further room now serving as a bar with modern oak servery and seating. The vestibule opens into the living hall, oak-panelled with narrow-studded walls at upper level and a substantial cross-beam at ceiling level. At the north-east end is the staircase with a balustraded balcony and stud wall to either side. Below is a plain stone fireplace with altered left mantel end and servant bell to the right. The oak overmantel is of seventeenth or eighteenth-century date, decorated with biblical scenes, heraldry, and Germanic text. The right wall panelling appears to incorporate reused decorative work. Panelled doors lead to the dining room, drawing room, and study.

The dining room contains an inglenook with a moulded stone fireplace and timber chimney piece including an overmantel composed of reused seventeenth and eighteenth-century elements, possibly of Flemish origin, with particularly rich decoration. Decorative panelling flanks the inglenook, with plain oak panelling to other parts of the room and window reveals. A concealed door in the panelling leads to the kitchen corridor. The kitchen areas retain some original doors with chamfered decoration and fittings. The drawing room has a reset ornate timber chimneypiece and a eighteenth-century style panelled ceiling with late-twentieth-century decorative plaster infill.

The main staircase features twisted balusters and square newels. The half-landing window, dated 1899 and decorated with leaded lights and iron catches, survives in original condition. The first-floor bedrooms are fitted with dado rails and plain cornices. The upper floor rooms, arranged across varying levels, have original panelled doors with iron furniture throughout.

A pair of broad timber gates with gate posts and cast-iron strap hinges stands at the entrance to the driveway.