Katherine Knapp Residential Home

Katherine Knapp Residential Home, Stretton Close, Tylers Green, Chepping Wycombe

A country house built circa 1901–05, later converted to a nursing home, retaining substantial Arts and Crafts character. The building was designed by an unnamed London architect, with oak panelling by Messrs. Smee & Cobay and plaster ceilings by Bankhardt. It is constructed of brick and rough cast with tiled hipped and gabled roofs and rendered chimney stacks. The windows are metal casements in wooden frames with leaded lights, some with metal hardware. The building is L-shaped, two storeys, with its main elevation facing the garden.

The south garden elevation displays the Arts and Crafts style prominently. An advanced large gable at the right end contains a wide first-floor window with a canted oriel above a 4-light cross-frame window. To the left stands a single-storey porch with hipped roof, a continuous band of windows, and four part-glazed wooden doors beneath two 3-light windows. Left of centre is a canted two-storey bay beneath a small gable, featuring applied and pegged close studding supported on curved braces, with a canted 5-light window at first-floor level above a 10-light cross-frame window. At the left end, a canted bay projects from a hipped roof, similarly detailed with a gable, a 5-light canted first-floor window above pargetting dated 1905, and a 10-light cross-frame window. All gables carry bargeboards with exposed purlins and drop pendants at their apexes. Three truncated chimney stacks rise on the south side of the pitched roof. A pair of flared buttresses appears at the left corner.

The east elevation begins with a full-height chimneybreast to the left, now under a gable where the stack has been truncated. To the right, ground level features a 3-light casement beneath a shallow tiled roof, with a recessed 3-light casement above. A central advanced gable contains a canted 5-light bay window at first-floor level under a projecting dentilled cornice, above pargetting and a 10-light cross-frame window. To the right stands a ground-floor canted bay with a 6-light window, beneath 3-light and 2-light windows above. The right end features a similarly detailed gable with two 3-light windows at first-floor level and single windows at ground floor, including a semi-circular window under a rendered drip mould. A truncated end stack completes this elevation.

The north elevation displays an entrance porch, wood-framed with glazed lights on a brick plinth. An advanced part-glazed and moulded door sits beneath a hipped tiled roof with side lights and corner pilasters. To the left, an advanced stair tower carries 5 lights over 2, all beneath a projecting dentilled eaves cornice. To the right, an advanced gable features a wide 6-light window at first floor incorporating an oriel. A small dormer with a large light cuts the eaves at the far right.

The interior retains high-quality fittings. The entrance hall features oak dado and joinery, with connection to the former billiard room, which contains higher panelling, a red glazed brick fireplace beneath an oak mantle with ogee apron, and an embossed plaster ceiling. An oak staircase with heavy vase balusters, square newels with cushion finials, and first-floor oak balustrade survives, though rearranged to incorporate a chair lift. Multiple rooms retain oak panelling beneath plaster relief friezes. The southeast corner room has a panelled ceiling with deep moulded ribs and foliate decoration, with similarly detailed circles within each panel, and walls with tall painted oak panelling beneath a foliate plaster frieze, completed by a wood chimneypiece with classical detailing. The west-end room features a relief plaster ceiling with foliate decoration at intersections and part-gilded flourishes at corner squares, a shallow cornice with foliate band, oak dado panelling, architraves, and panelled doors. An inglenook study to the east contains full-height oak panelling, joists with plasterwork featuring roses between them, and an oak chimneypiece.

The building was originally built as "Ashwells" with extensive outbuildings and grounds appropriate to a large country house. In the 1940s it became the Katherine Knapp Home for the Blind. A late-20th-century link to a nursing home wing was added to the return elevation and is not included in the listing.

The house was subject to a minor amendment on 3 February 2012.