KNOWLE LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY


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The house in 1900.

The garden, 1910

Showing the old farmhouse, fronting on to Lodge Road, in 1924.

The house in 1860

Knowle Lodge

(Formerly on site of Knowle Surgery)


Knowle Lodge was originally a 15th century timber-framed farmhouse which stood where the doctors’ surgery is today.  The 1817 enclosure map in this area shows several fields with the name Purnells on either side of the Warwick Road.  This land had traditionally belonged to the Knowle Lodge estate since the early 1600s; a survey made in 1605 mentions a house and land called Purnells.  This was almost certainly the original farmhouse, but more evidence is needed.  


The house was transformed into a gentleman’s residence with a large Georgian extension, probably about 1806 by the Revd. Thomas Blyth, who presumably named it, as the name Knowle Lodge appears in the sale notice for his library in 1839.  It was effectively the parsonage until the old  vicarage was built on Stripes Hill in 1849.  In 1860 it became the home of the Bower family, who remained until 1935.  The house was demolished in 1939.  After the war the modern houses in Newton Road, Blackdown Road and Whitacre Road were built in 1958.  All that remains of Knowle Lodge is the Warwick Road spinney, which was part of the garden.  It contains many wild flowers, including bluebells, celandines and fumitory.  The daffodils on the bank, planted by The Knowle Society in 1969, give a glorious show each year.  The spinney provides an attractive entrance to Knowle from Solihull.