61, Ludgate Hill

This is a late 19th or early 20th century manufactory and office building located on Ludgate Hill, Birmingham. It was empty at the time of inspection in September 2000. The building is constructed of smooth red brick with terracotta dressings and a Welsh slate roof.

The building's plan is a truncated L-shape, with a range of offices and warehouses facing the street, and the remains of a former single-pitched workshop range extending to the rear. This workshop range originally enclosed a small rear yard, although the yard has been enlarged by the demolition of much of the workshop.

The front elevation is nearly symmetrical, with three storeys above a basement and three bays. The left-hand bay has a wide vehicle entrance with vertically boarded doors. The right-hand bay has a doorway with a pair of three-panel doors and an eight-pane overlight, and a tall sash window with an eight-pane upper light and a concealed lower light. The central bay has a pair of similar windows and a moulded cill band. The window openings have shallow segmental arches with decorative keyblocks. Plain brickwork sits above shallow basement lights. A moulded string course runs between the ground and first floors, while the upper floors have paired windows of a matching pattern, diminishing in height with each ascending floor. The lower sashes are two-paned. A deep moulded cill band runs along the first-floor openings, with a simpler moulding to the upper-floor openings. Pilasters rise through the eaves cornice to define a shouldered gable with a semi-circular window divided by a brick pier to create quadrant attic lights with small panes. The rear elevation has a blocked doorway for a vehicle entrance passage and a square brick chimney. The junction with the surviving stub of a three-storey, single-pitched workshop range is on the left.

The ground and first floors have single cast-iron columns supporting main cross beams. A boarded partition with panelled doors separates the main rooms from a side staircase. The upper floor and basement were not inspected.

This manufactory replaced earlier buildings shown on an Ordnance Survey map from 1886-7. Early 20th century directories list the Wadsworth Electrical Manufacturing Company at this location, with later entries indicating they also occupied the attached premises at numbers 63 and 64.

The building is a small, purpose-built metal-working manufactory, exhibiting architectural characteristics typical of late 19th-century works in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. Together with the adjacent building at number 61, it forms a group of industrial buildings that now helps define the eastern boundary of a nationally important historic manufacturing district.