Tudor Grange House is a Grade II* Listed Building located in Solihull, Birmingham. The Victorian mansion was built in 1887 by Thomas Henry Mansell for Alfred Lovekin, an industrialist. The house features two storeys with attics and a basement, red stretcher bond brick, ashlar dressings, and a tiled roof. The attached stable block was situated on the west side of the house and has a T-shaped plan.
The ground floor of the house has a double-pile plan with lavish decoration, including panelling by Plunketts of Smith Street, Warwick, and elaborately carved fireplace mantels. The ground floor is composed of the Dining Room, Morning Room, Drawing Room, and Music Room. The Jacobean and Elizabethan styles are mixed with Georgian joinery. The plaster ceilings are decorated with strapwork, fruit, and flowers in high relief, and the windows contain stained glass panels of good quality. The Study and Music Room are particularly sumptuous, with richly carved woodwork. The Music Room has panelling to the full height of the walls, divided by Ionic pilasters with panels of bay leaves to their lower bodies and strapwork and masks above.
The house 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.
The stable block has been re-arranged to form teaching rooms, with several of the original windows replaced with uPVC windows and the openings appear to have been enlarged. The stables were arranged at either side of the central passageway of the downstroke, which runs east-west. The cross-stroke is oriented north-south and has a partially-glazed roof.
Alfred Bird, son of the founder of Bird’s Custard Company, bought the house from Lovekin after his wife died in 1900. He 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 continued to live in the house until 1940.
In recent years, the house has been fully restored and is now a retirement home. It is a notable example of a Victorian suburban mansion, displaying the wealth and style of the period. The rich decoration and elaborate architecture are a testament to the craftsmanship of the time. The connection to Alfred Bird, a prominent figure in Birmingham’s history, adds to the historical significance of the house. Today, Tudor Grange House remains a valuable cultural asset to Solihull and to the wider West Midlands region.