Canal Warehouse (Off Charlotte Street)

The Canal Warehouse, located off Charlotte Street, is a former warehouse that is now part of a museum complex. It was built in the mid-19th century and has undergone some alterations in the 20th century. The building is constructed of red brick with blue brick detailing and features a single ridge stack, with a roof covered in slate and modern sheet materials.

The warehouse has an L-shaped plan, with its longer side running parallel to the former canal arm to the northeast. The exposed northeast elevation shows that the building is three storeys high and consists of nine bays, with the leftmost bay forming the gabled end of a return range. The ground floor windows have shallow blue brick segmental-arched heads, which are now blocked. The openings on the first and second floors feature blue brick semi-circular arched heads, with the upper floor openings fitted with cast-iron multi-pane frames. The gabled bay has blocked openings on the upper floors.

Inside, the warehouse has been altered to create museum display and storage areas, but it retains the window reveals of the now-enclosed southwest side wall. The solid floors are supported by flat plastered beams set between the window arches. The ground floor still has a hearth in a bay that is separated from the main part of the building by a thick brick wall.

Historically, this building was part of the extensive works of Elkington Mason and Company, which occupied a large site bordered by the Birmingham and Fazelely Canal, Newhall Street, and Charlotte Street. Between 1795 and 1810, an extension to the canal, known as Whitmore's Arm, was constructed, extending westward into the southwestern part of the Jewellery Quarter. A now-demolished wing of the canal warehouse once spanned this watercourse. The mid-19th century warehouse played a significant role in the manufacture and distribution activities in the Jewellery Quarter, and surviving examples linked to the canal system are now quite rare.