Aquinus House

AQUINUS HOUSE, WARSTONE LANE, BIRMINGHAM

Offices and workshops, formerly a jewellery manufactory, built around 1882 with minor alterations in the late 20th century. Designed by architect Frederick Proud for J.H. Mole, jewellery manufacturers. The building is constructed of red brick with moulded brick and terracotta detailing, featuring prominent side wall and ridge stacks and a slate roof.

The building occupies an irregular L-shaped plan on a splayed corner site at the junction of Tenby Street and Warstone Lane. The main office range stands at the corner junction, with a workshop range extending along the Tenby Street frontage.

The office range rises three storeys above a basement. Its Warstone Lane frontage contains six bays, with five bays facing Tenby Street. The principal entrance is set within the splayed corner, marked by a shallow ogee arch-headed doorway with double doors beneath a multi-pane rectangular overlight. Above this sits a corbelled base supporting a corner tower with a steep pyramidal roof and decorative finial.

The first floor features paired flat-headed sash windows without glazing bars. Upper floor windows have segmental-arched heads with an engaged column set between them. Along Warstone Lane, shallow-arched basement lights sit below a moulded brick storey band. Ground floor window openings have shallow arched heads with deeply-recessed undivided sash windows. Bay 4 contains a secondary entrance with a shallow pedimented head and shallow-arched overlight.

A wide terracotta-faced storey band runs below a plain sill band to the first floor sash windows, contained within an arcade of stilted semi-circular arch-headed openings with terracotta infill panels to the arch heads. Upper floor windows sit in raised surrounds rising from a sill band, with recessed brick panels between the openings. Bays 2 and 5 feature larger sash windows set beneath diminutive coped gablets. This fenestration pattern repeats on the five-bay Tenby Street elevation, where the basement light heads sit close to pavement level as the ground rises along the street.

The workshop range, attached to the west end of the office range, comprises ten bays across two storeys with windows arranged 1:2:2:2:1:2. Bays are delineated by side wall chimney flues detailed as pilasters that rise through the eaves line and appear as double-flue chimneys with moulded brick decoration and cappings. A gable at the west end contains a shallow-arched vehicle entrance on the left side and a multi-paned workshop window on the right. The gable apex has dentilled verge decoration and a Venetian window. Ground floor windows feature shallow-arch heads, while upper floor openings have wide semi-circular arched heads with multi-pane window frames and radiating bars filling the arch heads. Hood moulds rise from moulded imposts.

The main entrance opens into a top-lit stair hall lined with decorative ceramic tilework. A circular cast-iron stair by McFarlanes of Glasgow connects the first and second floors. A complete contemporary central heating system survives within the building.

The manufactory was operating as "Messrs. Manton and Moles' Gold Jewellery Works" by 1889 and was designed to house powered processes, metal melting and gilding areas, workshops and offices, together with domestic accommodation for a caretaker. Extensive basements contained stores, offices and cellars, while the upper floors of the office range provided stock room, warehouse and bedrooms. Workshop areas were accessed from the main entrance.

The building forms a group with Nos. 67-69 Warstone Lane and Nos. 82 and 83 Tenby Street. It represents an exceptionally complete and finely detailed example of a purpose-built integrated jewellery manufactory from 1882, with clear architectural differentiation between manufacturing and administrative functions, and ranks amongst the most distinguished examples of industrial architecture within Birmingham's manufacturing district, now recognised as being of international significance.