The Knole (Now Freemason'S Hall)

The Knole, now Freemason's Hall, is a large mansion constructed between 1872 and 1873 by J.D. Sedding for Edmund Christy. It is an impressive example of the earliest Arts and Crafts period, exhibiting influences from William Morris. The building is primarily red brick with stone dressings and tiled roofs featuring ornamental ridges. It has two storeys and a high basement, arranged in an L-shape.

The south front, symmetrical and overlooking a garden terrace, is particularly notable for its central, three-storey gatehouse-style tower. This features stone polygonal corner buttresses, a four-centred doorway with a sculpted coat-of-arms above, and mullioned windows on the upper floors. Each side of the tower features a two-storey canted bay with mullioned and transomed windows, displaying a stone inscription indicating the date 1873, all beneath a deep stone-coped parapet. The west flank is asymmetrical, with a large rectangular bay at the northwest corner, featuring two transoms, a hipped roof, a dormer with two transoms, a plastered gable, and a sunflower metal finial. The southwest gable has been altered, incorporating tile hanging recessed behind the parapet, a detailed three-light Tudor-arched window, and a projecting chimney breast at first floor level (the chimney stack is now absent).

The entrance side is L-shaped, with an approach leading up steps to a terrace alongside the east wing, which was reconstructed with a flat roof in 1958. The north wing presents an interesting composition, including a four-centred doorway framed by small Tudor-arched lights; the door itself is decorated with incised patterns and studs. An adjoining wall is windowless, featuring an inset stone sculpted panel depicting St Hubert's Dream within a Gothic frame, topped by a battlemented gable with large, smooth stone merlons. A recessed tile-hung gable with a projecting canted bell-canopy on brackets and a sunflower finial on a leaded base sits above. A recessed northern wing includes a gabled stone dormer over a single-storey lean-to annexe with a brick chimney stack at the end, now showing much bare brickwork, and a flat-roofed modern extension. The forecourt is defined by a clipped yew hedge on two sides, bordered by a low brick coped wall.

Internally, the building has undergone considerable alteration, including the removal of linenfold-panelled doors and a Jacobean-style balustered staircase. Two rooms remain largely intact: the dining room, in the southwest corner, features linenfold panelling, a plaster foliage frieze, and an Elizabethan-style plaster ceiling. It has a chimneypiece with blue daisy tiles in a pink marble surround, protected by a four-centred arch with a carved frieze between fluted wood pilasters and cornice, surmounted by an overmantel of mirrors in three Jacobean-style arches, all under a plastered tester with three rows of sunflowers. The reception room, in the northwest corner and resembling a Great Hall, features an elaborate Elizabethan-style plaster ceiling with pendants, a foliage frieze, and a similar ceiling and frieze in a windowless recess opposite a square oriel. The chimneypiece is in a French 16th-century style, with a Renaissance-style round arch (containing blue tiles), hooded grate and an overmantel featuring flowers in a vase motif, tiered under a frieze with pilasters.