Take a look inside one of Wolverhampton's most expensive mansions

Springhill Lane house The Ridgeway, built by architect Major Kenneth Hutchinson Smith, has an asking price of a eye-watering £2.5m and is the most expensive residential property on the market in Wolverhampton.

Architect Major Smith built several properties in a similar style throughout the West Midlands during the 1920s and 1930s, inspired by his own personal vision of what the perfect home should look like.

Overlooking the Wrekin, Clent, Morven and Clee Hills the Tudor-style house includes seven bedrooms, a reception and dining hall, and a cinema room and gardens.

The Ridgeway also includes herringbone brickwork, stone fireplaces and special features, being partly based on the Fifteenth Century Wealden Houses of the southern counties.

Believing homes should be built 'the old fashioned way', Major Smith worked with bricklayers who used reclaimed bricks and lime mortar, wood carvers, and carpenters who worked without modern tools to create his homes.

Consequently The Ridgeway was built using old timbers from the New Ship Inn in Shrewsbury, and the staircase is believed to have come from Powis Castle.

Arriving in the UK with the Canadian armed forces in 1915, Major Kenneth Hutchinson Smith married an English girl and remained in the country.

Spending time with the Royal Engineers, the book 'One Man's Dream: the Architectural Art of Major Kenneth Hutchinson Smith', by Ron Davies, says this seems to be his only qualification for setting up as a designer and builder of homes.

In his book, author Ron Davies says of a home in Castlecroft Gardens, in Finchfield, another creation of Major Smith: "Unfortunately like so many of the properties built by K.H.Smith there are very few definite records of what timbers are what, either their source or their eventual situation, though is known that he acquired timbers from such local places as Wolverhampton's former Deanery and Henwood Road, Tong Castle near Albrighton; even timbers and other ancient materials from Bilston's W.Cole, a merchant who in his early years demolished many local old houses and cottages."

Berriman Eaton partner Caroline Eaton said it was rare for such a propery to go on the market, describing it as a Major Smith 'dream home', that was probably not fashionable at the time, when new houses were more in vogue.

She said: "He had a vision of what he felt the ideal residential housing estate should look like...after the war he bought a lot of damaged properties from all over the place and re-used timber framework and oak panelling."

Miss Eaton said her client had taken the house apart - including each timber frame and plaster panel - to re-insulate and re-roof the property, always describing it as a 'labour of love'.

The asking price for the property was not just for its style and connection to the Major, The Ridgeway covers 11.5 acres in Lower Penn.

Featuring seven bedrooms, a reception and dining hall, and a cinema room, the home has been 'substantially improved by skilful, seamless extensions and improvements over recent years'.

The listing says all of the original timbered charm and character has been retained, including some fine beamed and raftered ceilings with modern appointments and alterations. These include a Mark Wilkinson kitchen, a vaulted sitting room and new bathrooms.

A motor house and heated garages for several cars are included, as well as an independent ground floor hall with gym and self-contained apartment above.

Beyond the formal gardens lie paddocks with a three-box stable, tack and feed room and large, adjoining garden machinery store.

To view the house visit rightmove.com