Nos. 97-107 Hagley Road, Edgbaston

Nos. 97-107 Hagley Road, Edgbaston

A terrace of six former houses built in 1819-20, designed by Thomas and Joseph Bateman for John Harris. Around 1971, John Madin Design Group converted them to office accommodation for Rentcroft Investments, retaining the Regency façade but demolishing and rebuilding all the fabric behind it.

The Regency house façade is of brick covered with colourwashed stucco beneath a slate roof. The office buildings to the rear have a reinforced concrete frame clad with precast concrete panels. The original houses had three storeys with a basement and a T-shaped rear wing extending over the former gardens; the new construction replicates this arrangement with three upper floors and an open garage at basement level.

The road front features a sunken area with iron railings before each house, accessed by flights of four steps. Each house occupies two bays. At ground floor level, the walling is scribed in imitation of rustication and terminates at an emphatic projecting band forming the sill of the first floor windows. The upper bays are divided by panelled pilasters rising through two storeys to connect with the deep eaves. Panelled front doors are flanked by fluted pilasters with foliate capitals supporting a wooden entablature below a segmental fanlight with a bull's eye to the centre. Ground floor windows are slightly recessed in panels with segmental heads and have margin glazing to the sash. First floor windows are twelve-pane sashes and second floor windows are six-pane sashes, all without horns. Areas in front of each house basement are protected by railings with vase and flame-shaped finials, with gates and steps to each basement. At either end of the terrace front, ramped brick wing walls project to define the terrace enclosure, with the western wall ending in a square stuccoed pier.

The flank walls are blank but stuccoed, representing the appearance of the domestic terrace when it had projecting rear wings.

The rear was entirely rebuilt in 1971 with windows grouped in pairs and plain panels between. Pilotis at basement garage level support a wing extending at the centre, joined to the principal block by a slender glazed lobby. At the northern end of this wing is a basement-level entrance.

Internally, the fanlights and sash windows of the domestic façade remain visible, together with short lengths of original party walls between the properties. The central panelled door leads to the reception hall. This front section was refurbished in the early 21st century. The remainder has an adaptable plan with rows of concrete columns to the centre of the floor space and temporary enclosure walls for individual offices. Staircases have teak handrails and terrazzo treads set slightly detached from side walls, in accordance with Madin's design approach.

The wall fronting Hagley Road and the portions of former party wall remaining from the original 1819-20 structure are listed as of special architectural or historic interest. The remainder of the building, erected around 1971, is not listed.