I've been meaning to get photos of this house for a while. As it was where Alfred Bird of Bird's Custard lived.

It is Tudor Grange House and it is off a side road off Blossomfield Road in Solihull

It is Grade II* listed.

I wonder if there is anywhere else that you can take it from? Not sure if you can see it from Tudor Grange Park or not.

<a href="http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=1392959&resourceID=5" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Tudor Grange House and Stable Block - Heritage Gateway</a>

A large suburban house with attached stable block. It was designed and built in 1887 in a loosely Jacobean style by Thomas Henry Mansell of Birmingham for the industrialist Alfred Lovekin with panelling by Plunketts of Smith Street, Warwick. The house is of red stretcher bond brick with ashlar dressings and a tiled roof and has two storeys with attics and basement. The stable block is T-shaped in plan and attached to the west side of the house.

EXTERIOR: The northern entrance front has a near-symmetrical centrepiece which is recessed at first floor level and above but which has a projecting three-bay porch to the ground floor with door to the right. At either side are projecting, gabled wings and these and the central bay all have shaped outlines to their gables. The windows to the ground and first floors are mullioned and transomed, and there are projecting bay windows to the ground floor at either side. There are panels of carved stonework, particularly around the porch, featuring strapwork and grotesque masks. A further bay to the east then joins to the low wall screening a service court and this in turn joins to the stable block. Extending to the west is a single-storey range of two bays added by Sir Alfred Bird with a square bay window and small, elaborately-carved oriel capped by a battlemented parapet. The garden front is composed with deliberate asymmetry, having five bays with shaped gables to the left of centre and far right and a canted and square bay, each of two storeys, as well as a single-storey bay to the far right. At the west end is a low screen wall which connects to the stable block. To the far east is a portion of walling, the southern side of which was formerly inside the conservatory. Attached to this are concrete containers attached to the wall which are moulded in immitation of rock. The skyline on both principal fronts has a very full array of clustered octagonal chimneys with moulded caps. The balustrade at the top of the wall has moulded balusters and the balustrade piers are surmounted by statues personifying a variety of figures including Hercules, Brutus and William the Conqueror some of which were carved by White's, according to George Noszlopy, who has identified the overall scheme as based on late C16 and early-C17 English engravings of heroes from Greek mythology, Roman Emperors and characters from English legend, some of which were added by Sir Alfred Bird who employed Robert Bridgeman.

HISTORY The opening of the Birmingham-Oxford Railway in 1852 caused the initial expansion of Solihull's urban area and throughout the later C19 and much of the C20, the borough has expanded to become an affluent commuter suburb of Birmingham. Tudor Grange was built for Alfred Lovekin of Adie & Lovekin, jewellers and silversmiths in 1887. The company manufactured a wide range of silver fancy goods at the end of the C19 and had a factory in Regent Street, Hockley. In 1894 they commissioned Mansell & Mansell to design a new factory for them at 23, Frederick Street, Birmingham which became known as `Trafalgar Works' (Grade II).

Lovekin's wife died in 1900 and in 1901 the house was sold to Alfred Bird, son of the founder of Bird's Custard Company. He enlarged the house, adding the library and a sizeable conservatory to the east, and had Blossomfield Road moved northwards, away from the entrance front, and built a new entrance lodge at the end of the re-configured drive. He also employed Robert Bridgeman to ornament the house with statuary and furnished it with an extensive art collection which included paintings and also with panels of C16 and C17 Flemish stained glass, which survive in situ. Alfred Bird became M.P. for Wolverhampton West in 1910. In 1920 he was knighted and in 1922, the year of his death, he was made a baronet. His widow lived on at Tudor Grange until her death in 1943 and the house is believed to have been used as a Red Cross auxiliary hospital during and after the Second World War. In 1946 the house was bought by Warwickshire County Council and became a school for children with special needs until 1976 when it became part of Solihull Technical College. Date 14 May 2011, 12:38 Source Tudor Grange House - off Blossomfield Road, Solihull Author Elliott Brown from Birmingham, United Kingdom