Chamberlain Tower

Chamberlain Tower, a campanile tower built in around 1909 to designs by Aston Webb and Ingress Bell for the University of Birmingham, based on the Torre del Mangia at Siena.

MATERIALS: the tower is built of red Accrington brick with Darley Dale stone for the dressings and parts of the upper stages, with a lead roof. The base is solid concrete.

PLAN: the tower itself is square on plan; it stands at the centre of the downward stroke of the D plan of the original university campus, and is aligned on the main north-south axis from the northern entrance gates to the Great Hall.

EXTERIOR: the tower rises from the ground to a height of approximately 100 metres; its lowest stage is faced in rusticated ashlar stone and contains an arched passage which passes underneath the tower on axis with the main entrance to the Great Hall to the south and the university entrance gates to the north. Within the archway are doors which give access to the tower; one directly into the lift and, on the other side, to the stair access. On the exterior face, beneath the cornice which surmounts this lowest stage of the tower, is an inscription which reads, 'THIS TOWER COMMEMORATES THE FOUNDING/ OF THE UNIVERSITY THROUGH THE INITIATIVE/ AND ACTIVE ENCOURAGEMENT OF ITS FIRST CHANCELLOR/ SIR JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN'. The inscription continues around all four sides of the tower. Above this there are alternating bands of stone and brick, before the main stage of the tower rises its full height in brick.

Each face of the tower has three recessed arches which rise the full height of the main section, and which contain pairs of windows at intervals as the tower rises. Above these is a band of stone below the clock faces on each side of the tower.

Above the clocks the design continues much in the manner of the Torre del Mangia, with monumental stone corbels on each face supporting stone parapets above and the upper stages of the tower. The corbels here have round arched heads. The uppermost stage of the tower is again in brick with large arched openings denoting the bell chamber within, with a smaller section of stone corbelling above which then supports the pyramidal roof.

INTERIOR: almost the full height of the interior of the tower is a single open space, with wooden stairs and platforms which rise the height of the building and are supported on steel beams. The original lift survives with its panelled interior, and continues to provide access to the highest levels of the tower.

The eighth floor houses the clock, and the clock faces can be accessed for maintenance through hatches in the walls. The clock faces themselves are 5.2m in diameter. The original clock mechanism, by Joyce of Whitchurch, also survives. The tenth floor gives access to the parapet walk, and the bells are housed in the bell chamber at the eleventh floor.