16, Frederick Street

A small jewellery manufactory, constructed around 1870. It is built of red brick with blue brick banding and painted stone dressings, and has a Welsh slated roof with a tall brick stack to the east gable. The building has an elongated U-shaped plan, with a narrow street frontage and a workshop range to the west side, accessible from a side passage and a narrow rear courtyard. The courtyard extends the length of the rear plot, widening at the north end.

The exterior is two storeys high. A wide 20th-century vehicle entry occupies the centre, replacing two former ground-floor windows; it has triple, vertically-boarded doors beneath a long rectangular overlight. To the left is a main entrance with a raised and fielded four-panel door and a tall overlight. The right-hand bay features a narrower doorway leading to the passage entrance, again with a four-panel door and a tall overlight. Both original doors have shallow segmental arched heads defined by blue brick bands, with painted springers and keystones. The arches of the two removed lower windows, now above the 20th-century vehicle entrance, are similarly detailed. Above, a painted stone cill band runs along the four first-floor windows, with heads matching those on the lower floor, and sash frames, the bottom sashes containing margin glazing. A moulded stone string course is above this, followed by a blue and red brick cornice.

The building was identified as a jewellery works on an 1889 Ordnance Survey map, demonstrating access to the courtyard and workshop ranges through the passage entrance. Previously, maps from 1855-62 showed the site as part of the garden associated with a large detached house, which was itself later used as a separate jewellery works.

Number 16 forms a group with numbers 14 and 15 Frederick Street. This building retains distinctive architectural and plan characteristics, helping to define the purpose-built manufactories of this specialist manufacturing district of Birmingham. This district is now recognised for its international significance.