102, Spencer Street

This is a late 19th-century manufactory, partially remodelled in the early 20th century. It is constructed of red brick with painted stone dressings, blue brick detailing, end brick chimneys, and a slate roof. The building occupies a narrow, wedge-shaped plot at the rear of the gardens originally associated with a house on Vyse Street.

The exterior features a six-bay frontage of three storeys. The right-hand end bay has a remodelled entrance with an elaborate painted door head, shallow bracketed cornice, and a shell hood above. It has vertically-planked double doors. To its left are a pair of shallow, rubbed brick arch-headed windows with painted sills and late 20th-century frames. Further left is a semi-circular arch-headed doorway with a blue brick margin, and two wide window openings with late 20th-century joinery on a painted sill band. The upper floors have shallow arch-headed workshop windows on painted sill bands, all with multi-pane metal window frames and blue brick arch margins. A painted dentilled eaves course runs along the top of the building.

Historical maps indicate the plot was part of a garden in about 1862. By 1889, the area between Vyse Street, Spencer Street, and Hockley Street was fully developed, occupied largely by jewellery works. Initially, the Spencer Street frontage appears to have been a workshop range behind houses on Vyse Street, with No. 102 possibly originating as part of this arrangement.

The building forms a group with Plantagenet Buildings, No. 28 Hockley Street, and Nos. 94, 96, and 100, Spencer Street.

It is a small, late 19th-century manufactory, possibly originating as a workshop range and later remodelled, incorporating an office entrance alongside the original workshop windows of the upper floors. The site exemplifies the economic viability of small plots during a period of rapid expansion in Birmingham’s internationally significant manufacturing district.