Shephall Manor

Shephall Manor is a country house, now used as a school, built in 1865 by T Roger Smith for Unwin Heathcote. The house is constructed of red brick with box ground stone dressings, featuring gabled plain Staffordshire tile roofs with stone-coped gables, brick ridge stones, and end stacks with diagonally-set flues. It has an L-plan shape, with a servants' wing projecting to the front right. The architectural style is High Victorian, with asymmetrical elevations.

The main elevation is two storeys and an attic, with a six-window range. A gabled central porch has a flush crocketed gable over a pointed-arched doorway, featuring ballflower ornament to the moulded architrave, set on engaged shafts with foliate capitals, a trefoiled frieze, and stone bands to the first floor. A two-light chamfered stone-mullioned window is above the doorway, with a hood mould and foliate stops. A five-light pointed-arched window is located in the hall to the right, with a high transom dividing an upper row of star-shaped lights from trefoiled lights. Horned plate-glass sashes are found within chamfered stone architraves, with trefoiled lights to gabled dormers. A plain gable end is to the right, with raised brickwork beneath a stack. A canted stair tower at the angle with the service wing has crocketed capitals to a pointed-arched doorway, small trefoiled lights, and gargoyles to a quatrefoil parapet. The two-storey, six-window range service wing to the left has plate-glass sashes set in chamfered stone architraves and two half-dormers with two lateral stacks to the left.

The right side wall incorporates a canted stone oriel with a foliate-carved frieze and capitals, and a hood mould with foliate stops over a three-light window with high and low transoms dividing trefoiled lights from trefoils above and quatrefoils below. A square-headed doorway is set within a segmental-headed architrave, supported by ballflower ornament. Trefoiled lights are present in gabled dormers, and a gable end to the right features a similar three-light window above the canted oriel with trefoiled lights.

The rear elevation displays pointed-arched lights with trefoil-headed sashes to the first floor, as well as to canted and square bay windows. A canted oriel, featuring a foliate-carved frieze and a half-hipped dormer window, adjoins a central gabled projection. A five-light arcaded window with engaged shafts is positioned above a similar two-light window; a hood mould with foliate stops sits above a pointed-arched doorway. A gabled bay has a canted bay window to a plainer service end, which has sashes set in shouldered architraves.

The interior includes a decorative tile floor in the lobby, panelled doors and shutters. The hall features a French-Gothic fireplace, a panelled dado, and a neo-Georgian staircase with twisted balusters. The rest of the interiors exhibit classical cornicing and ceiling bosses, along with some marble fireplaces. T R Smith, the architect, was the founder-editor of "The Architect" and Professor of Construction at University College, London, and is noted for buildings in both England and India.