Stockgrove Park, Attached Swimming Pool, Walls, Gates And Gatepiers

Stockgrove Park is a country house, now a school, begun in 1929 and completed in 1938 by the architect W Curtis Green for F M Kroyer-Kielberg. It is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond with limestone dressings, hipped pantile roofs, and brick ridge stacks. The building follows a free Georgian style in an extended U-shaped plan with two storeys and an attic.

The entrance front faces a courtyard and features a three-bay centre that breaks forward. At its heart is a central double-leaf glazed door with a fanlight in a round-arched head, set within a stone surround with spandrel panels. Plain Tuscan pilasters flank the doorway and support an entablature and broken segmental pediment framing an elaborate cartouche bearing the family arms, crest and supporters. Flanking the door are small narrow six-pane sash windows with flat-arched heads. The first floor has square twelve-pane sashes immediately below a moulded stone cornice, with brick pilaster strips to the angles. The main block to the ground floor left of centre contains a twenty-pane sash window; to the right is a blank window of similar size. Both have flat-arched heads and key blocks, with star-shaped ornamental brick panels above and pairs of square sash windows to the first floor. At the re-entrant angles are projections housing staircases, each with a circular window to the ground floor with key block and twenty-four-pane sash windows to the first floor. Six-window wings frame the courtyard with similar twenty-pane sashes to the ground floor and similar square sashes to the first floor.

Short return wings define the courtyard with comparable windows to ground and first floors except for a door to the courtyard side of the right return wing near the inner corner, which has an overlight and flat-arched head, and a circular window to the first floor above with a keyblock. The courtyard is closed by a gatescreen on low stone-coped brick walls attached to the outer angles of the return wings. Cast-iron gates and wrought-iron gatepiers with elaborate overthrow, their ironwork made by Birmingham Guild, flank the double-leaf entrance gates.

The main house features a brick plinth, continuous moulded stone cornice, and a pair of roof dormers to the entrance wing either side of centre with segmental-arched pediments and twelve-pane sashes. Side wings have dormers with straight heads and eight-pane windows. An asymmetrical timber bell turret tops the outer end of the right courtyard wing. The bell turret has multi-paned windows to its base, which is given pilastered corners, and tall bell-chamber openings with round-arched heads flanked by Tuscan pilasters. Urns with flame finials crown the corners of the base. The structure is topped by an ogee lead roof with channelled angles and a tall finial in the shape of a pawn.

The principal south-east elevation faces the garden and has a central two-storey canted bay flanked by glazed garden doors with overlights and segmental-arched heads. Twenty-four-pane sashes to the ground floor have similar heads; sixteen-pane sashes to the first floor have flat-arched heads. The central first-floor window of the bay features a stone keyblock with wreath framing the date 1929, and a large square stone panel above carved in relief with a sailing ship. A plain stone-coped parapet rises slightly above the relief carving. Brick pilaster strips flank the outer angles, crowned by moulded plinths of tall stone urns with flame finials. Roof dormers project above the parapet. Steps either side of the bay descend to a terrace and connect with a single flight down to the lawn.

The south-west garden elevation has an asymmetrical composition divided into two planes. The projecting half has a central two-storey semicircular bow. The recessed left half contains a two-storey canted bay and a two-storey two-window projecting wing to the far left. Windows match those of the main garden front. A corresponding wing to the far side of the courtyard serves as a service wing.

A swimming pool is attached to the right courtyard wing and flanks the right side of the approach to the courtyard. The pool building has a double-slope roof with upper slopes glazed and rows of dormer windows. Its entrance is at the gable end within a porch flanked by low hipped-roof projections, with a tall twenty-eight-pane sash window above the entrance. This window is set in an eared moulded stone surround with a segmental-arched head and key block. A circular window punctuates the shaped stone-coped gable, topped by an urn and finial at the apex.

Interior

The vestibule has a T-shaped plan with a stone-paved floor, Ancaster stone dado and pilasters, and a plaster tunnel vault over the entrance bay with a groin vault within. The hall is divided by an oak fluted Ionic column screen, with oak panelling to the walls punctuated by fluted pilasters. Three doors lead from the hall, each with moulded wood surrounds and pulvinated friezes with central plaques. The middle door has an eared surround with carved brackets supporting a pediment and a hare carved to the frieze plaque. Those either side have cornices with a grouse to the left frieze plaque and salmon to the right. An eared wood chimney-piece opposite is furnished with marble slips, a pulvinated acanthus frieze, brackets to the shelf, and a central plaque depicting putti holding a goat.

The hall opens to the staircase, an open-well stair of oak with fat balusters on urn feet. Square newel posts have elaborate vase finials overflowing with fruit and flowers, upon which pairs of birds are perched. The carving of these finials is by J Armitage.

The former dining room features bolection-moulded panelling with an acanthus leaf frieze and round-headed niches either side of an early eighteenth-century style carved stone chimney-piece. Doors from the hall have eared wood surrounds with segmental pediments. The ceiling displays stylized neo-classical plasterwork.

A principal corridor has a plaster tunnel punctuated by moulded stone doorways. The business room, now an office, has a mid-eighteenth-century style chimney-piece of stripped pine with swags. The library is lined with walnut panelling featuring simple Corinthian pilasters and inlay patterns, with fitted bookshelves. A plain Siena marble chimney-piece is outlined in black marble with black marble hearth, shelf, and scalloped shelf back panel. The ceiling is coved plaster. Principal rooms have parquet floors. Secondary staircases are open-well stairs with fretwork balustrades.

The swimming pool features a cantilevered wood balcony above the entrance from the house with a fretwork balustrade. Rectangular piers with bracketed capitals support a barrel-vaulted roof with clerestorey lighting. The floors, pool, and walls are lined with original blue tiles.

The principal bedroom suite includes an Art-Deco style panelled sitting room with a fitted polygonal cabinet to the window pier and black radiator boxes to the window reveals with metal grilles. The bathroom retains original fittings with chrome-plated mounts.

Additional carving and plasterwork is by L A Turner.