Swarcliffe Hall Now Grosvenor House School

Swarcliffe Hall, now known as Grosvenor House School, is a country house built between 1848 and 1850 by Major Rhode Hawkins for John Greenwood of Knowle near Keighley. It was enlarged in 1866-67. The building is constructed of coursed squared gritstone and ashlar, with graduated grey slate roofs. The original structure is a square house of two storeys and three bays, facing east, with a larger wing added to the north. At the rear, there is a four-storey tower, which has a lower two-storey service wing attached to the north. The design is in the Jacobethan style, featuring a Tudor arch and hoodmould above the main door in the original range, which is located in bay two. This entrance is flanked by projecting gabled wings that include oriel and mullion-and-transom windows with hoodmoulds, continuous dripmoulds, gable copings, ball finials, and tall chimneys with one, two, and three flues. The addition on the right projects forward in the same style. Above the entrance to the original range, the date 1850 is carved, and the right return features a tower with corner pinnacles and a turret. Inside, the original reception rooms are preserved, including a rear hall with an elaborately carved wooden fire surround in Jacobean style and a panelled plaster ceiling. The staircase rising from the hall has square-section balusters linked by arches, and the south-east living room contains marble fireplaces and patterned tiles. John Greenwood was a cotton spinner in Keighley and became a significant landowner in the area after purchasing the Wreaks Mill in Birstwith in 1805.