The Great Western Railway (GWR) did not pass through Knowle, but had a Knowle Station, included to serve the commuters who worked in Birmingham but lived in the growing suburb village. As a new hamlet of Dorridge grew around the station it was renamed ‘Knowle and Dorridge Station’ before being named as we know it today – ‘Dorridge Station’.
The Rising Sun was a popular inn on the road to Warwick at the north end of Knowle High Street. It changed its name in the 1830s and took the new name from the then Lord of the Manor of Knowle, William Wilson. Since then it has been known as the Wilson Arms.
Opposite the Rising Sun on the other side of the road to Warwick stood Knowle Lodge, a fine house at the fringe of its substantial estate.
Taking a walk along the High Street one might start at the junction with Kenilworth Road where history faces you from all sides. On the one corner stand the Berrow Homes, fine old buildings in their own right, but standing now on what was the village green, replete with stocks, in centuries past.
Opposite, the Knowle Indian Brasserie, 1690 High Street, occupies what was, from 1835 to 1934, a Congregational chapel. This having then moved to new premises on Station Road, and being now known as the United Reformed Church.
The Guild House is a part of the adjacent Parish Church in the heart of the old village. It accommodates the Parish Office and is also a meeting space.
The Guild House was originally constructed in 1412, built for the Guild of St Anne, a religious charity of the time. This Guild was dissolved at the time of the Reformation and ownership passed on.
According to the records of the British Museum as place called ‘Gnolla’ was a part of of the parish of Hampton-in-Arden in the early 1200s. This name meant ‘on top of higher ground’.
The people of the growing community at Knowle found it difficult to attend church in Hampton, particularly in winter when the Blythe Valley was flooded, and so in 1402 Canon Walter Cook established a further church in Knowle within the Hampton parish.