41, Hylton Street

BIRMINGHAM

997/0/10386 HYLTON STREET 29-APR-04 41

GV II Manufactory. Late C19 with minor C20 alterations. Red brick with painted ashlar dressings, end stacks and a slate roof covering. PLAN: L-plan range occupying street corner plot, with workshop range forming frontage to north-east arm of Hylton Street. EXTERIOR: North-west street frontage of 2 bays rising from a shallow blue brick plinth, with semi-circular arch-headed doorway to right, the 2-panel door and overlight partially obscured by a C20 roller shutter. To the left, a tall 2 over 2 pane sash window with shallow hood supported on decorative brackets. 2 first floor windows with 2 over 2-pane sashes and plain lintels below a dentilled brick eaves band. Side elevation with 3 workshop windows to ground floor. These have multi-pane metal frames and shallow segmental-arched heads with blue brick margins. Single off-centre window to first floor. Further left, 3 bay workshop range with inserted vehicle entrance to left-hand end and 3 upper floor workshop windows.

Forms a group with Nos. 37-39 Hylton Street (q.v.) and No.49 Vyse Street (q.v.) This complex, built on a restricted street corner site forms part of a continuous street frontage range made up entirely of manufactories, all small-scale and detailed in domestic style, reflecting the earlier C19 pattern of converting and extending houses to form workspaces and offices. These however are consciously designed and planned , purpose-built industrial premises. Together with the parallel range of buildings to the west side of Vyse Street they form a solid block of back- to- back manufactories, all with workshop ranges to the rear of frontage buildings. Eccentric plot shapes were fully utilised in this area, now with the densest such survival in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter, recognised as a manufacturing district of international significance.