Area guidesKnowle
Knowle
B93 · Solihull
A view of Knowle. Photograph by The original uploader was Wikierpedia at English Wikipedia ..
Knowle is a small, historic market town on the southern edge of the Solihull borough, built around a timber-framed high street and a substantial parish church. It has the feel of a self-contained village rather than a suburb: a walkable centre of independent shops and cafes, pockets of parkland close by, and a slower pace than the Birmingham conurbation it sits within.
What stands out
- A genuinely historic core: timber-framed buildings and the Guild House sit around a parish church with medieval origins, giving the high street a village character rather than a suburban one.
- Green space is close at hand, with Knowle Park and several smaller gardens and nature reserves within easy reach of the centre.
- Local state schools in the immediate area are consistently rated Good, which matters to families weighing up the town.
Trade-offs
- Any house-price figure attached to this guide describes the whole Solihull local authority, not Knowle itself, so it will not capture how much streets near the centre differ from the wider borough.
- Our evidence shows a good local bus network but no railway, metro or tram stop within the immediate area, so anyone who needs a fast rail commute should check the nearest station and its timetable directly.
- Every state primary and secondary near the centre is non-selective, so families wanting a grammar or independent option will need to look further afield and confirm admission arrangements themselves.
Things to know about Knowle
- Comedian Jasper Carrott is among Knowle's notable residents.
- Businesswoman Karren Brady is also associated with the town.
- Science fiction writer John Wyndham is named among Knowle's notable residents too.
- Knowle has a genuinely old identity: it was a chapelry before becoming its own civil parish in 1866.
History and what it is known for
- Knowle was formerly a chapelry, becoming a civil parish in its own right in 1866.
- The civil parish was abolished on 1 April 1932 to form Solihull Urban, with parts also going to Balsall and Lapworth.
- In 1931, shortly before that boundary change, the parish had a population of 2,982.
Notable connections
- Jasper Carrott — comedian associated with Knowle
- Karren Brady — businesswoman associated with Knowle
- John Wyndham — science fiction writer associated with Knowle
- Steve Bruce — football manager associated with Knowle
- Peter Withe — footballer associated with Knowle
- Trevor Francis — footballer associated with Knowle
Background from Knowle, West Midlands on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikidata (CC0), summarised for this guide. Details change — check anything that matters to you.
Everyday life
Daily life in Knowle centres on its high street, where independent shops, cafes and pubs sit alongside the timber-framed buildings that give the town its identity. The parish church anchors the centre visually and historically, and the surrounding streets keep a village-like scale even as they serve a much wider catchment of shoppers and visitors from across Solihull.
Housing character
The housing stock reflects the town's long history: older cottages and period properties cluster near the centre, giving way to more conventional family housing on the surrounding roads. Any borough-wide price context attached to this guide describes Solihull as a whole rather than Knowle specifically, so it is best read as background rather than a neighbourhood figure.
Getting around
Knowle is served by a reasonably dense local bus network, which is how most short journeys within the town and to neighbouring Solihull settlements are made. Our evidence does not show a railway, metro or tram stop in the immediate area, so anyone weighing up a commute by rail should check the nearest station and service pattern directly rather than assume one is on the doorstep.
Things to investigate
Worth checking before committing to the area: the current admission arrangements and catchment boundaries for each nearby school, since proximity is not the same as an admissions guarantee; the actual bus timetable and frequency on routes that matter for a daily commute; and the nearest railway station and its journey options, none of which are captured in our evidence. It is also worth confirming the listed status and current use of the historic buildings on the high street, as this guide draws only on a general history source rather than a heritage register.
Schools
Measured by distance from the area centre, straight line. Primary is a walk and secondary is a journey, so they are counted on different radii. Ofsted's published judgements, not a Greathome rating.
Primarystate-funded, within 2 km
4 schools
- Judged by Ofsted
- 4
- At least Good
- 4
- Outstanding or equivalent
- 0
- Below Good
- 0
Secondarystate-funded, within 5 km
4 schools
- Judged by Ofsted
- 2
- At least Good
- 2
- Outstanding or equivalent
- 0
- Below Good
- 0
5 open schools of every phase sit within 2 km, 0 of them independent. Independent schools carry no Ofsted judgement in this release, so they appear in the total and never in the judged figures. Nothing here establishes catchment, admissions eligibility or available places.
The nearest 5 schools, with their published judgement
| School | Phase | Distance | Published judgement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knowle Church of England Primary Academy | Primary | 0.3 km | Good · Overall effectiveness, pre-September 2024 |
| Arden | Secondary | 0.4 km | Good · Overall effectiveness, pre-September 2024 |
| St George and St Teresa Catholic Primary School | Primary | 1.4 km | Good · Overall effectiveness, pre-September 2024 |
| Dorridge Primary School | Primary | 1.6 km | School remains Good (Improving) - S5 Next · Ungraded inspection |
| Bentley Heath Church of England Primary School | Primary | 1.7 km | Good · Overall effectiveness, pre-September 2024 |
Housing market context
£334,966average house price across Solihull, June 2026
A year earlier the same measure was £321,556, a change of +4.2%.
Average price across the whole local authority for one month, from the ONS series built on HM Land Registry UK House Price Index data. It is not a neighbourhood median and not a valuation of any property. Two guides in the same borough share this figure while their streets differ. House-price data is revised, and recent months are the most likely to move.
Source: Average house price by local authority, Office for National Statistics, from HM Land Registry UK House Price Index.
Boundary
Knowle, taken as the B93 postcode district. A postcode-district proxy, not an approved polygon. These are postcode districts standing in for an approved polygon. Present every count as "in these postcode districts", never as a neighbourhood or town-centre figure.
Sources
- Average house price by local authority — Office for National Statistics, from HM Land Registry UK House Price Index
- Get Information About Schools — Department for Education
- Ofsted inspection management information — Ofsted
- Street-level crime data — Police.uk
- Postcode and administrative geography — Postcodes.io / ONS
Evidence checked 2026-09-13. Last content change 2026-09-13. Next review 2026-09-20.
Geography and local records
Local records load separately while you read the guide.
What this report does not cover
- neighbourhood median sale price (not_available): Only a local-authority average is connected, from ONS. A neighbourhood median needs enough geocoded transactions inside the guide boundary, which the per-postcode HMLR queries cannot supply.
- rents (not_available): No rent series is connected. Advertised rents and official all-tenancy measures are different things and neither is available here yet.
- journey times (not_available): No journey planner is connected. Transport is measured as nearby stops, not as time to anywhere. TfL PTAL and journey-time APIs would replace it for London.
- school admissions history (not_available): Admission arrangements are held by each admission authority and are not in the GIAS or Ofsted snapshots.
- licensed premises and venues (not_available): No licensing register or venue dataset is connected. Food-hygiene categories are not a pub register.
- image rights (not_yet_verified): No licensed image library is connected. Return an image brief rather than an asset.
- approved boundary polygon (not_yet_verified): Boundaries are postcode-district proxies. Counts describe the districts named, not a town-centre polygon.