Forest Grange

Forest Grange is a large house, built in 1913 and likely designed by J P McGraw, a civil engineer. It was subsequently used as a private school. The house is constructed in a Jacobean style, using red brick in English bond with Bath stone dressings, a Horsham stone slab roof, and clustered brick chimney stacks. It is an asymmetrical building, roughly L-shaped, with two storeys and attics, and irregular window placement.

The front entrance features central and right-end projecting gables with kneelers and ball finials. There are three clustered brick chimney stacks and four flat-roofed dormers. The right-end gable has a mullioned window with a transom. The central gable contains a four-centred arched doorway with side lights, and above it, a stone panel depicting a shield held by dragons representing Saint Leonards’s Forest. The L-wing forms a service wing and has two projecting gables to its left end, two flat-roofed dormers, and mullioned windows.

The garden front is characterized by three projecting gables, each with a two-storey, eleven-light canted bay window with mullioned windows on the first floor and mullioned and transomed windows on the ground floor. There are also four other windows, mostly three-light mullions on the first floor and three-light mullioned and transomed windows on the ground floor, with a two-storey, four-light oriel window to the right of the central gable. A large external brick chimney stack with clustered brick stacks sits between the left and central gables. An attached, one-story outbuilding extends from the right-hand end, predominantly weatherboarded on a brick plinth, with a Horsham slab roof and continuous casements.

The Great Hall is panelled throughout with oak plank and muntin panelling, with spine beams and ceiling joists featuring run-out stops. The fireplace has deep wooden cornices and two Atlantes, likely reused figures from the 17th century. The former Library is also panelled up to ceiling height, with a wooden bolection-moulded fireplace. The Dining Room is executed in the Adam style, with fluted pilasters, a plastered ceiling and wall panels, and a wooden fireplace featuring a panel of six cupids and a frieze of tripods, urns, and swags. The Staircase Hall boasts an Oak Imperial staircase with strapwork embellished balusters and end piers. A large Dining Room features panelled walls, an early Georgian style oval ceiling with plaster cherubs, and a stone four-centred fireplace. One principal bedroom contains built-in walnut furniture. The bathrooms have old baths and tiled surrounds while some bedrooms have wooden fireplaces with tiled surrounds.