23-26, WARSTONE LANE

This is a shop, office, and workshop building, originally manufactories, dating to circa 1870. It was re-fronted and extended circa 1905, with later 20th-century alterations. The building is constructed of red brick with moulded brick and terracotta detailing, covered by a slate roof.

The building’s plan has evolved into a U-shape, with parallel rear workshop ranges enclosing a narrow rectangular yard. The front range has been remodeled with five bays and three storeys. The ground floor is from the late 19th century, while the joinery to the end doorways is from the early 20th century. A late 20th-century vehicle entrance has been inserted in the centre. There are doorways with early 20th-century half-glazed double doors set in deep reveals, with shallow timber canopies above the door heads, below semi-circular brick arched overlights. Paired semi-circular headed windows, also with early 20th-century joinery, sit to either side of each doorway, rising from a moulded cill band and linked by an impost moulding to the heads of the openings. Inserted double doors are under a plain concrete lintel. Upper floor bays are delineated by shallow brick pilasters linked by moulded cill bands to the upper floors. The first floor has transomed 4-light multi-pane timber window frames under concrete lintels, with a brick pier dividing the centre opening. Raised rectangular brick panels are above the lintels. The upper floor has paired transomed 2-light frames under flat brick arches. Pilasters rise through moulded coping to form low piers with dentilled caps to a low interrupted parapet. A rear workshop range of 14 bays, originally two storeys, extends south from number 32; it has sloping blue brick cills, shallow brick arched heads, and multi-pane cast iron frames to the window openings, as well as two doorways and two smaller windows between the workshop windows. A further 14-bay storeyed range is to the rear of numbers 25 and 26.

Inside, there is a modern shop interior to the left, with workshops to the rear, and an office to the right, with half-glazed double doors leading to a staircase to the upper floor and the rear workshop range.

According to an Ordnance Survey map from 1902, the existing arrangement of the front range and rear ranges was already in place. The inserted vehicle entrance likely replaced a central passage entry to the rear yard. The building forms a group with numbers 28 and 29 Warstone Lane. This manufacturing complex illustrates two distinct architectural styles, characteristic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in a Birmingham manufacturing quarter of international significance.