97-100, Albion Street

This is a terrace of four houses, arranged as two pairs, dating from around 1845. Later used as a printing works, the buildings were empty at the time of inspection in 2000. They are constructed of red/brown brick with off-centre gable and ridge chimneys, and have a Welsh slate roof. The houses are arranged in a linear range of 'three-quarter houses', with pairs of dwellings entered through a central passageway, and individual doors within the passageway.

The front (northwest) elevation has four bays and two storeys above cellars, with attics. Two doorways, providing access to the passageways, are centrally positioned in each half of the terrace. Above the panelled doors are semi-circular overlights. Flanking the doorways are stacked window openings, all originally with flat gauged brick heads. The first floor has undivided sash windows. The attic has two-light casements. Ground floor windows are now boarded up, except for one on the right, which has been enlarged. The right return shows an asymmetrical roof profile and an off-centre chimney stack.

Internally, the original plan form has been modified, but evidence remains of the original room layout. Each dwelling originally had two rooms on each level, served by a plain staircase running parallel to the central passage. Features retained include small cast-iron grates in plain surrounds, panelled doors, and in Number 99, an arched recess beside the hearth at attic level. The cellars include chimney bases with arched recesses.

Directory records indicate the houses were built around 1840 in two phases, as demonstrated by a straight joint between the pairs. They represented a higher standard of working-class housing, providing more space than the contemporary back-to-back and court houses. A public health report from Birmingham in 1841 included a plan and elevation of similar three-story, three-quarter houses, indicating that this type of dwelling was considered suitable accommodation for the working classes. The terrace is a rare surviving example of a distinctive type of working-class housing once common in Birmingham, and despite internal alterations, it demonstrates the quality of accommodation considered to be a superior provision in a rapidly expanding 19th-century industrial community of national significance.