History

House built in 1901 as Croft Cottage for Mrs Tonks of Sutton Coldfield by Healey & Marston of Sutton Coldfield and Walsall, in Victorian Domestic Revival style with red tile-roofs and tile-hung upper floors. Occupied by St Stephen's Boarding and Day School for Boys and Girls in 1926. A good example of the mixture of Georgian sashes and tile-hung walls pioneered by R Norman Shaw in the late 1870s, sometimes known as 'Queen Anne'.

Exterior

House, now subdivided into flats, roughcast ground floor with red plain-tile cladding to upper floors and roofs. Red brick chimneys. Tiles and chimneys renewed 2000. Two-storeys and attic, asymmetric 2-bay front in Domestic Revival style. Big left end chimney, small stack to right end, on roof slope. Dormer on roof slope with triple 4-pane casements and flat roof. Ground floor openings with depressed-arched heads, 4-pane sash left, door with plain fanlight left of centre, and big 2-4-2-pane tripartite sash to right. Door has 4 fielded and 3 glazed panels. Tile-hung upper floors have 2-storey canted oriel to left, breaking eaves under 5-sided roof with timber finial. Ogee roughcast base to oriel and 8-16-8-pane glazing each floor, moulded eaves cornice. To right, a hipped oriel to first floor only with similar ogee base, 12-16-12-pane glazing but with door to corner balcony in place of right sash, roof hipped to left. Above in a gable with bargeboards is pair of small 8-pane sashes in moulded wall-face frame. The door in the oriel opens onto a 2-storey painted timber balcony with hipped roof in angle between St Stephens and Glendower Houses adjoining. Three tapering piers to ground floor with slatted screen under first floor. First floor has 2 fluted piers at angles, similar screen under moulded eaves cornice, and slatted balcony rail.
Front garden enclosed by iron rails with fleur-de-lys heads and urn finials to 2 piers. Grey limestone plinth.
Rear to The Norton is roughcast with red tile long roof and 2 levels of dormers. Flat dormer with casement pair to left and triple casement at lower level right now linked to top of three-storey canted bay to left. Bay has 8-16-8-pane sash each floor and breaks eaves under 5-sided hipped roof with finial. Moulded cornices at first floor and attic. Centre and left have openings with depressed-arched heads, paired 8-pane over paired 2-pane to left, single 8-pane over door to centre. Door is similar to front door with fielded and glazed panels and plain overlight. E return has similar 8-pane sash over similar door.

Interior

Entrance hall has ornate fireplace on left with panelled overmantel and cast-iron grate, inscribed 'The Gold Medal Eagle Grate 1897'. Folding iron doors to cover grate, embossed ochre-coloured tiles to cheeks with pastoral scene. Staircase is set back, 5 stairs up to a broad platform (said to have been for musicians) with moulded square balusters and fluted big newels. Dog-leg stair behind has similar detail. Broad depressed arch over platform paired with a narrow arch over the passageway on right leading to rear ground floor.

Reasons for Listing

Included as a well-designed late Victorian to Edwardian house in Domestic Revival style

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Wikidata Q29503290

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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