The Argent Centre (Former Argent Works)

The Argent Centre, formerly the Argent Works, occupies a corner site on Frederick Street in Hockley, Birmingham. Constructed between 1862 and 1863, it was designed by J G Bland as a pen manufacturing facility for Q E Wiley. The works also incorporated a Turkish Baths, located within the four-storey block at the Frederick Street range. The building is a large L-plan complex, enclosing a single-storey shed on two sides.

The architecture is striking, employing red brick with stone, gault, and buff brick dressings, banding, and chequerwork to create a polychromatic effect. The arcaded elevations draw inspiration from Florentine-Lombard early Renaissance palazzi, with corner towers to the nine-bay Legge Lane front and a similar emphasis at the end of the 22-bay Frederick Street range, marking the location of the Hamman. The ground floor is slightly battered, with arcaded windows featuring polychrome voussoirs. A billet mould string course serves as the base of the principal two-storey arcade, containing two-light windows divided by colonettes; the second-floor windows have stone plate tracery in the arches. The building is topped by a stone machicolated main cornice with a low parapet. Originally pierced, this parapet was later heightened in plain brick, almost to the eaves of the tower belvederes. These belvederes originally possessed tiled spires, which have since been truncated. The Hamman block features plain sash windows in its narrower bays, mirroring the corner towers, with arcaded lights to its belvedere storey. A pedimented doorway on Legge Lane was added around 1900. A modern waggon entrance has been created on Frederick Street, and a segmental arched doorway – part of a larger three-arch arrangement on the ground floor – leads to the former Hamman.

The building’s fireproof construction is notable, utilizing flat hollow brick arches with wrought iron tie rods, linked to right L iron skewbacks. Internal floors are paved with brick, and the flat roof was originally asphalted. A square, tapered chimney stack, rising to the rear of the former Hamman, features polychrome banding to its cap. This stack served the engine room of the manufactory, with surplus steam powering the Turkish Baths. The Argent Works are a prominent feature of the inner jewellery quarter, with the Legge Lane elevation dominating Newhall Hill. Technical details regarding the construction can be found in "The Building News" of 21 August 1863, p 650.