87, 88 AND 88A, VYSE STREET

BIRMINGHAM

997/0/10316 29-APR-04

VYSE STREET 87, 88 AND 88A

GV II

A pair of manufactories. Mid-C19, adapted and enlarged by late C19, further altered late C20. Red brick with painted stone dressings, truncated central ridge stack and a hipped roof with composition slate covering. PLAN: Long street frontage formed by pair of double-fronted former dwellings with added parallel rear workshop ranges enclosing narrow yards. EXTERIOR: 7-bay frontage range of 2 storeys , No. 87 with basement, the smaller right-hand end bay possibly a passage to rear workshops. Remaining 6 bays form near-symmetrical facade with 2 central doorways between flanking windows. Doorways below pediments with altered pilaster doorcases. 4-panel doors, that to No. 88 within a panelled reveal. Left-hand part with ground floor display bay window on elaborate moulded brackets, and with dentilled cornice. Right-hand window with shallow -pitched lintel and undivided sash frame. Wider, similarly - detailed openings to right-hand part with C20 joinery. First floor windows set upon a painted sill band, with rectangular surrounds to outer openings and semi-circular arch-headed openings to the centre, above each doorway. At right-hand end, a lower semi-circular headed window with glazing bars. Rear elevation to No. 88, with added storeyed workshop range INTERIOR : Workshop range to No. 88 with composite metal and timber roof structure supported on one side by brick piers and on the other by cast-iron columns. Evidence of floor level line shafting survives. HISTORY: The buildings were apparently built as houses, and appear as such on the Piggot-Smith map of 1855-62. On the 1889 Ordnance Survey map, a long dog-legged range is shown attached to the rear of No.87, and the rear yard of No. 88 sub-divided. The workshop range at No.88 was added between 1887 and 1907. A mid-C19 pair of small evolved manufactories, originally houses, but rapidly adapted and extended to form industrial premises during the expansion of a notable manufacturing quarter of Birmingham now recognised as being of international significance.