The Grange

The Grange is a house with an attached chapel, built between 1843 and 1844 by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin for his own residence, with later alterations and additions by Edward Welby Pugin. It is constructed of gault brick with black brick bands, stone dressings, and slate roofs. The house is two storeys with attics.

The facades are irregular and picturesque, reflecting Pugin’s intention to express the building’s plan and function in its appearance. The garden front is tripartite, with a returned gable above a two-storey canted bow featuring casement windows and a basement. The center features two ground floor casement windows, a single first floor window, and a three-light window. Details include a ground floor plinth, a first floor string course, simple boarded eaves, and verges to gables. A single three-light dormer window is present, along with a ridge stack.

A three-storey rectangular tower is located at the east end, featuring a battlemented parapet. Adjacent to this is a single-storey, hipped-roof projecting chapel with a two-light south window and a two-light west window. A projecting gable at the west end is an addition by Edward Welby Pugin, forming a business room with external access. The remains of a conservatory plinth are also present.

The north front is highly irregular, featuring a glazed entrance corridor projection added by Edward Welby Pugin, replacing an earlier entrance that connected to a wicket gate. A service wing at the north west has been heightened by Edward Welby Pugin.

The interior includes a hall with an off-axis fireplace, staircase, and gallery. The dining room features a carved fireplace with brackets supporting a large bresummer beam, creating an inglenook—a reference to the medieval hall-house plan. Two reception rooms have stencilled ceilings with mottoes and heraldry, alongside two fireplaces by Pugin, one enlarged with colonnettes by Edward Welby Pugin, and another with monograms and emblems of the children. The chapel contains early Minton tiles and glass by Wailes, depicting family portraits and patron saints.

The Grange is historically significant as a key example in the development of 19th-century domestic architecture, both in its planning and style.