Tudor Grange

Tudor Grange is a hotel, originally a private house, completed in 1928 and designed by WH Mackenzie and RA Phillips for Mrs CG Knight.

The building stands on the east side of a large plot on the south side of Gervis Road. It has an irregular oblong footprint with its principal elevation facing west. Constructed in brick with timber framing, brick nogging and hung tile, the building features tiled roofs and brick chimneystacks.

The architecture is a picturesque Arts and Crafts-influenced Tudor Revival design of two storeys and an attic. The varied elevations feature projecting timbered gables and bays, half-timbered jetties, and projecting chimneystacks. The brick nogging employs a mixture of patterns—herringbone-work, stretchers and headers combined with tile—to create varied infill panels. Windows are metal casements in timber mullioned frames containing an assortment of leaded glazing: circular, rectangular, diamond and geometric patterns, often with stained glass elements.

The asymmetrical principal elevation has a roughly central porch recessed beneath a projecting gable. The porch is timber-framed with brick nogging around the base and features an arched timber screen with barley-twist detailing. Its doorway has a Tudor-arched lintel; the front door is ledge and plank construction with a flat-arched head, decorative handle, strap hinges, and a leaded window. The upper storey displays decorative timber-work with rendered infill panels and a mullion and transom window of six lights. The gable has deep moulded barge boards with an apex pendant, flanked on the first floor by recessed planes of hung tile with an inserted window on the right. To the left of the porch is the wide gable end of the cross wing, timber-framed with decorative nogging on the ground floor and render above. It has a canted bay on the ground floor with a large mullion and transom window and a balcony roof with brick and timber balustrade. An external chimneystack incorporates diaper-work and is topped with a pair of star-plan chimneys. The right-hand side has another canted bay window on the ground floor and a jettied upper floor. The south-east extension is recessed from the elevation, brick on the ground floor and timber-framed and jettied above.

The north and south elevations share similar characteristics: half-timbering, jettied bays, angle-set chimneys and dormers. The east elevation, standing close to the plot boundary, is mainly brick with hung tile on the upper storey, containing a large mullioned window lighting the stair hall.

Internally, the house was planned with a central hallway leading to the principal rooms, service accommodation in the north-east corner, an open-well stair, bedrooms leading from a first floor landing, and servants' accommodation in the attic. The interiors are carefully detailed with abundant timber panelling and oak flooring, retaining a good proportion of panelled doors with bronze fittings and windows with historic ironmongery.

The porch leads into a small panelled compartment with leaded lights, then into the entrance hall. A large chimneypiece features a limestone fireplace with a depressed arch and moulded spandrels and chamfered jambs, with a panelled over-mantle. The open-well stair has heavy newels incorporating thick barley-twists and ball finials, a moulded handrail, and barley-twist balusters. A large five-light window with mullions and transoms lights the hall, featuring geometric leading and stained glass Tudor rose motifs.

The lounge, marked on the architect's plans as the dining room, has a vaulted ceiling with geometric linear relief moulding, three-quarter panelling, and a stone chimneypiece with panelled over-mantle. The windows contain stained glass heraldic shields.

The dining room, marked on the architect's plans as the drawing room, has dado panelling and a limestone chimneypiece with mouldings to the spandrels, a cornice with foliate mouldings, and relief mouldings to the corners of the ceiling.

On the first floor the stair emerges onto a landing, and a balustrade with a moulded handrail and barley-twist balusters steps and curves around the stair void. The landing is panelled to three-quarter height with a deep ceiling beam with moulded consoles. A short flight of stairs leads to the four-poster bedroom. A second stair with plain square newels and stick balusters leads to the attic, originally servant's accommodation, since reconfigured to form a number of bedrooms.

In front of, and aligned with, the front entrance is an octagonal brick sundial standing on the junction of intersecting axes of garden paths.

To the west is the former motor house, converted to hotel accommodation. It is a pitched range of a single storey and an attic with brick elevations and gables with paired leaded casements. The gable end of the ground floor has been rebuilt in brick, replacing the original folding timber doors. A paved area to the front was intended for washing the car.