Details
SP 19 NW SUTTON COLDFIELD HARTOPP ROAD
Four Oaks
2/10007 Number 9
II
Detached house. 1920. By Edwin F. Reynolds. Brick, rough rendered, with dressings of stone and plaster, roof of tiles. The principal part of the house is rectangular in plan under a hipped and gableted roof with a shallow, gabled entrance wing to the north. Two storeys and attic, three-window range. The entrance front is symmetrical, the garden front almost so. All windows are flat-arched wooden casements, unless described otherwise. Segmental-arched entrance with moulded stone; architrave and keystone, giving onto an inner porch with flat-arched entrance and panelled door; the corners of the entrance wing are brought forward as if for pilasters, but only on the front face; storey band of two projecting courses of brick which runs right round the house; immediately above the entrance is a canted dormer with lozenge decoration in rough and smooth render on the front face of the spandrel; the roof is brought round the front of the gable and over the oriel, as if the gable above were breaking through a hip, and there is a two-light, slightly projecting window in the gable under its own little roof, one window on each floor either side of the entrance wing-, brick dentil cornice to the caves and the gable. The garden front is also of three-window range, with a single-storey, canted, six-light bay window to the centre under a hipped roof, with original, segmental heads to the glazing of the two central lights; a four-light window to the left, the two central lights French windows, with the lower panels now glazed; and a three-light window to the right, set slightly to the left of a symmetrical position; the central window projects very slightly over the roof of the bay window below; storey band of two projecting courses; one hipped dormer; similar hipped dormers on the east and west slopes of the roof, two ridge stacks with recessed arcading in the brick of the sides of brick; single-storey outhouses on cast side, linked to the garage which is designed in keeping though of later date than the house; senmi-enclosed standing for a second car between the garage and the house dates from the late C20. INTERIOR: retains its original plan, with only minor alterations apart from the removal of a wall between the kitchen and the former maids room; architraves and doors, with original door furniture, survive generally throughout the house; and there are exposed timber beams in all the principal rooms. Entrance hall with open well staircase to three floors, with square newels, shaped rail, square balusters set lozengewise and bare oak treads; the sitting-room has a simply-moulded Classical surround to the hearth with panelling above; flanked by fitted cupboards, panelled below and glazed above; the dining room has a similar fireplace with flanking cupboards of which only the lower parts remain; the middle room on the first floor, originally a day nursery, has a simply moulded, Classical fireplace inset with Dutch tiles; there is a similar fireplace whose decorative tiles may be of a date with the house, in the eastern first-floor room, originally a night nursery; and the fireplace in the middle attic room may he original.
Listing NGR: SP1095698274
