156, Warstone Lane

This is a mid-to-late 19th-century manufactory, now used as workshops and offices, with alterations made in the late 20th century. It is constructed of red brick with painted stone dressings, blue brick detailing, and a slate roof. The building occupies a corner site, forming an irregular U-shape created by combining two earlier workshops.

The Warstone Lane frontage is three storeys and has an attic, with five bays. It's composed of a curved corner section joined to a longer, fifteen-bay elevation fronting Pemberton Street, a lower and remodeled central bay, and a taller mid-19th century bay that was originally a separate manufactory. The Warstone Lane elevation features a semi-circular arched doorway, now blocked, a single ground-floor window with a bracketed cornice, and a flat-arched upper-floor window above four narrow first-floor openings. A lower bay to the left has a narrow vehicle opening, and bracketed eaves. The curved corner section has a blue brick plinth and a wide, shallow pointed-arch doorway with a moulded brick surround, a shallow barred overlight, and a painted hood mould. Above are two windows with pointed arched heads and a painted brick band. Three-over-three pane sash windows are set on painted cills. An altered doorway is present further along, with first-floor windows on narrow painted cill bands, some with altered three-over-two-pane sashes. The attic storey has a sill band and narrow flat-headed windows arranged 1:3:3:3. The Pemberton Street elevation, in two phases of matching detail, rises two storeys and an attic above a basement. It has fifteen window bays arranged 4:4:7 with shallow arch-headed openings to the ground and first floors, and painted brick hood bands above the arch heads. Upper-floor windows have flat heads that form an eaves line. Painted brick and blue brick sill bands are present. Most windows have multi-pane cast iron frames. An inserted doorway is located at the north end bay.

The rear courtyard has been largely overbuilt, with a storeyed wing extending eastwards to the north end. Historical records from an 1889 Ordnance Survey map identify the Pemberton Street site as Novelty Works, an electro-plating manufactory. The frontage was partially developed before the construction of the seven northern bays. The eastern bay of the Warstone Lane frontage was a stamping and piercing works, accessible via the current vehicle entrance to a narrow yard with a workshop range on its west side.

The building forms a group with 27 and 28 Pemberton Street. It represents a late 19th-century manufactory, developed in stages through extension and amalgamation, with distinctive architectural differences between office and workshop areas. It is a distinctive and substantially unaltered component of a specialist manufacturing district in Birmingham now recognised for its international significance.