GRIMSHAW HALL takes you back 400 years in an instant. It looks, so it seems, exactly as it did in 1600, with leaded windows, soaring chimneys and overhanging upper storeys. Here is the full dazzling virtuosity of English half-timbering with herringbone and lozenge patterns almost as intricate as the markings of a leopard.

The front is a perfect example of the E-plan in honour of Elizabeth I, with projecting ends and central porch. Better still, the sides and the back are every inch as picturesque. Then the thought dawns: how can the house have survived so miraculously intact through the centuries without a Georgian sash or Victorian servants’ wing?

The answer is that, yes, the clock has been put back on two occasions, but so cleverly and sensitively that it is hard to tell the old work from the new. This is not pastiche but Victorian Arts and Crafts and the Edwardian love affair with the past. On both occasions exceptional architects were involved. They adopted an approach that English Heritage and too many local authorities might summarily reject today —– that of blending the old with the new to create a seamless whole. The house was built in Knowle, near Solihull, by the Grimshaws in the second half of the 16th century. By the 19th century it had become three cottages. It was then acquired by Joseph Gillot, a pen manu- facturer known as “His Nibs”. He brought in the architect J. A. Chatwin, who had the delicate task of restoring and extending what is now Birmingham cathedral. Just before the First World War the family called in W. Alexander Harvey, who laid out the famous Bourne- ville Estate for the Cadburys. The result is a composition richer and grander than most half-timbered houses in Sussex or Suffolk and as exuberant as any in Cheshire.

The bigger surprise is to find that it is going up for auction on November 26, barely a month after it was first advertised, with a guide price of £1.75 million. Prospective buyers are coming forward in such numbers that a whole series of viewing days have been organised and an auction may indeed be the way of prompting the fiercest and fastest bidding.

For this is a house that almost certainly will go to someone living in the Midlands or with very close business or family connections there. For those who live or work in the vast bustling megalopolis that is Birmingham, this is a prime site indeed.

Although it is only three miles from Solihull, Knowle retains the feel of a country village, with a few too many modern buildings on the high street perhaps, but a ravishing medieval church at the end. Grimshaw Hall is secluded in the centre of its 17 acres of grounds – with extensive lawns flanking the drive, trim yew hedges enclosing a modest formal garden to the side, and further lawns sloping down to a small lake. There are white doves on the roof of the dovecote, ducks on the water and Canada geese.

Part of the substantial coach-house block has been converted into an indoor swimming pool with a dance floor next door. The wall of sliding glass may not be to everyone’s taste when seen from the outside, but it is not visible from the house itself.

Inside, Grimshaw Hall lacks the great chamber with rich plasterwork that one hopes to find in a house of this date but the exposed timbers give every room great character: timber posts in the walls, timber beams and, at the top of the house, the roof trusses exposed to dramatic effect. At present there are just two discreetly placed bathrooms for seven bedrooms — and more will not be easy to achieve even by converting bedrooms.

The house is in good condition, but gives the impression that its last owner, Keith Moore, a businessman and motorcycle enthusiast, barely occupied it. Solihull Council last year fired a warning shot that may deter developers from seeking to break up the Grade I listed property, when officers recommended the refusal of an application to turn the outbuildings into ten dwellings and build 12 garages. The application was subsequently withdrawn.

This is one of the best surviving country houses in the Birmingham area, not too large for family use, and should remain in one ownership.

Andrew Grant: 01905 24477 www.andrew-grant.co.uk

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