Birmingham Gun Barrel Proof House

The Birmingham Gun Barrel Proof House is a gun barrel testing facility commissioned by the Guardians of the Birmingham Gun Barrel Proof House and designed by John Horton. It opened in 1813. The building was subsequently extended by Charles Edge in 1860, Bateman and Corser in 1868-70 and again in 1876, and by Jethro Cossins in 1883.

The building is constructed of red brick laid in various bonds with painted stone and terracotta dressings and a slate and plain tiled roof.

Layout

The original 1813 building has two storeys and a basement and lies to the north of the site. To its north is an entrance forecourt with a gate screen and two-storey lodge to the west. To the south is a yard containing single-storey proof rooms, magazine and loading rooms. The buildings either abut each other or are joined by covered walkways.

The Entrance Range from Banbury Street

The entrance range of 1883 has a central round arch set in a shaped gable. This arch was raised in 1970 to accommodate larger vehicles. Shaped gables stand at either side, the one at left belonging to the gate lodge. The diapered brickwork has moulded brick dressings and there is a stone tympanum to the central arch showing the coat of arms set in a cartouche. The south flank of the entrance lodge has three bays with a central two-storey porch with shaped gable.

The Proof House Range of 1813

The 1813 range is joined to the entrance range, and the furthest right-hand bay of its north face is masked by the block to the south of the arch.

Exterior

The 1813 front has ten bays and is of Flemish bond brick. Near the centre is the principal door, which was formerly a throughway. This has a basket arch frontispiece with Tuscan pillars to either side and an entablature with blocking course. Projecting from the blocking course is a tablet supported on brackets reading "ESTABLISHED BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT / FOR PUBLIC SECURITY, ANNO DOM : 1813." Above this is a broad, shallow niche containing an elaborate trophy of arms (attributed to William Hollins), and at the top is a segmental pediment with a circular clock face. Rainwater pipes with hoppers on either side of this feature each bear the date "1813".

To the left of this feature are five bays, and to the right are four bays, of a former eleven-bay composition. Both floors have painted stone surrounds to the windows with brackets supporting segmental pediments. Between the first and second bays at left is the Guardians' entrance, which leads up to the Board Room at first floor level. This has a six-panelled door with fanlight and Tuscan doorcase with open, segmental pediment. Until 1868 there was a matching doorway to the right of centre giving access to two houses for proof house officials.

The south face of this range fronting the yard has numerous additions. On line with the pedimented centrepiece on the north front is a single-storey canted bay lighting the office of the Proof Master. Above is a staircase window and above that a circular clock face set in a pedimental gable. To either side at ground floor level are single-storey additions of later 19th-century date accommodating the enlarged receiving and testing rooms. These have lean-to roofs with rooflights. The first floor sash windows are all of four lights with segment heads. Extending from the right side across the yard is a covered walkway with iron columns, open sides and a pitched roof. Plans show this existed by 1833. A wing projects at far right connecting to the Proof Hole.

Interior

The Guardians' entrance hall has a ceiling rose and an open-well staircase with wrought iron balustrade and wooden handrail. Some cornicing survives in the Receiving Room, which was formerly housing for staff of the Proof House.

The first floor Board Room survives largely intact with cornicing and carved wood surrounds to the doors and windows featuring reeding and patera. There are paired doors to the east and west end walls and a fireplace to the south wall with a marble surround.

The adjacent Museum Room, perhaps formerly the Proof Master's Office, has similarly moulded surrounds and a large two-door wall safe.

The Proof Hole of 1860

The Proof Hole of 1860 is in a round-arched style and of orange bricks laid in English bond with blue brick dressings. A bomb blast in 1940 caused the demolition of the southernmost of the original four bays.

Exterior

The western yard front has three bays with round arched openings to the lower body, all fitted with heavy metal shutters with louvred panels, above which are small oculi. The roof consists of a louvred arrangement of timbers to allow smoke to escape. The east front of the Proof Hole is blank.

Close to it and flanking the canal wharf is a further, smaller proof house with similar brickwork used to retry barrels which have failed to discharge in the Proof Hole. This has a deeply splayed door surround to the south front and metal bosses to reinforce the walls. Joined to it at its north end, and also flanking the canal wharf, is a two-storey building with lavatories below a late 19th-century magazine, now disused.

Interior

The lower walls are lined with thick plates of iron which are heavily scarred, and there are iron screens at both ends of the room. Two raised brick platforms face each other across the width of the room. The one to the west side has a stone surface grooved to hold gun barrels, which are held in place by piled sand and fired in sequence by a fuse. On the opposite side the surface is covered with piled sand to absorb the shot. The roof has a curved metal canopy at the centre to deflect shot. Above this, the roof structure is louvred to allow smoke to escape. The three arched openings in the west wall have thick iron shutters and louvres worked by heavy metal crank arms.

Proof House Range

A further range of smaller testing rooms lies along the south side of the yard.

Exterior

The range has a series of four cambered doorways with blue brick dressings and metal reinforcement. To the south-west corner is a larger room also used as a proof hole for multiple firings. It has blank walling to all sides, a deeply chamfered door surround to the west face and a renewed roof. To the west side of the yard is the washing-out room for cleaning the barrels after firing, which has a canted bay to the yard front and was formerly a loading room with priming and ramming rooms off.

Interior

Each of the series of proof rooms consists of two chambers: an outer room in which the rifle is placed in a metal box and directed through the dividing wall to the second room which contains a sand bank. Both chambers have solid brick walls and there is thick metal cladding to the lower walls of the second rooms. Some of the dividing walls between the rooms have been removed.

The Magazine Building

The magazine building at the centre of the yard has plain brick walling of English bond to three sides and a half-glazed door to the west gable end. Plans show the building has an outer and inner room.

The 20th-century buildings to the north side of the entrance forecourt are excluded from the listing.

History

The Gun Barrel Proof House was established as a statutory institution by an Act of Parliament of 1813 to test barrels and completed guns. The Act was requested and obtained by the Birmingham trade and the Proof House was run at its own expense. It was, and still is, governed by a Board of Guardians composed of Master Gunmakers, magistrates and councillors and run by a Proof Master. Gun barrels and complete guns are tested by inspection and are fired to ensure their soundness and marked with a die stamp if they pass.

The original building of 1813-14 was designed by John Horton of Bradford Street, Deritend. A watercolour drawing of this time shows the original treatment of the north-facing entrance front, which had a Tuscan throughway leading to the yard behind. To the east of this were five bays and to the west were four. At the centre of the rear yard and on line with the central arch was the original magazine, treated as a classical kiosk.

The survey plan of 1833 by Henry Jacob shows that the four bays at west belonged to two houses for officials of the Proof House, entered from a passageway common to both. These were altered in 1868-70 by Bateman and Corser and converted into workshops, and at the same time the facade was altered to make it more symmetrical with five bays to the west side of the arch. Also at this time the throughway appears to have been filled in and a semi-oval staircase added. A new, plainer magazine was added at the centre of the yard by the same architects in 1876.

Prior to this, in 1860, a new Proof Hole or testing house of four bays had been built to designs of Charles Edge. The entrance range to the forecourt was added by Jethro Cossins in 1883, including an archway which was raised in height in 1970.

A bomb fell in the yard in 1940 and caused the destruction of one bay of the 1860 Proof Hole and the associated range of loading rooms along the south wall.