16, Frederick Street

997/0/10281 FREDERICK STREET 29-APR-04 16

GV II Manufactory. c.1870 with late C20 alteration. Red brick with blue brick banding and painted stone dressings. Welsh slated roof with tall brick stack to east gable. PLAN: Elongated U-plan with narrow street frontage and workshop range to west side accessed from side passage and narrow rear courtyard, extending the length of the rear plot and widening at north end of courtyard. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, with wide C20 vehicle entry to centre, replacing 2 former ground floor windows, now with triple, vertically - boarded doors beneath a long rectangular overlight. To the left, main entrance with raised and fielded 4-panel door below tall overlight. Right-hand bay with narrower doorway to passage entrance with 4-panel door and tall overlight. The 2 original doors have shallow segmental arched heads defined by blue brick bands, and with painted springers and keystones. The arches to the 2 removed windows, now above the C20 doorway are similarly detailed. Above, painted cill band to 4 first floor windows, the heads detailed as those to the lower floor, and with sash frames, the lower sashes with margin glazing. Moulded string course above, and then a blue and red brick cornice. HISTORY: The building is identified on the 1889 Ordnance Survey map as a jewellery works, with the courtyard and workshop ranges accessed from the passage entrance, as described above. The Piggott-Smith map of 1855-62 shows the site forming part of the garden of a large detached house, itself identified on the 1889 O.S. map as a separate jewellery works. No.16 forms a group with Nos.14 and 15 Frederick Street (q.v.)

A small jewellery manufactory of c.1870, built when adjacent residential properties and associated garden areas and vacant plots were being developed as industrial premises. Despite alteration, it retains the distinctive architectural and plan form characteristics which distinguish the purpose-built manufactories of this specialist manufacturing district of Birmingham, now recognised as being of international significance.