36-37, COX STREET

This building is a pair of offices, originally constructed around 1920, and later altered in the late 20th century. It began as a manufactory and associated offices. The exterior is red brick with decorative reconstituted stone dressings, a plain brick chimney, and a roof largely hidden behind a shallow, ramped brick parapet.

The building has a wide frontage range with a main entrance on the right and a vehicle entrance on the left, accompanied by a workshop range to the rear, now adapted for office use. The asymmetrical front elevation is two storeys high above a basement. The left-hand vehicle entrance bay has late 20th-century railed gates set between pilasters, leading to a moulded segmental arch with brick infill and a lower brick lintel. The central section has four bays, and the right-hand bay contains the main entrance, with an undulating parapet delineated by banded pilasters above narrow lancet windows at each floor. The entrance has stone facings at ground and basement levels, with chamfered surrounds to the basement openings. The doorway itself is set within a shallow segmental arched opening with a three-pane overlight. A single lancet window and a wide, tripartite window with glazing bars and stepped transoms are also visible on the right. All openings have segmental-arched heads and moulded surrounds. Above, a dentilled cornice and a deep storey band lead to six single-light openings set within a semi-circular arch with pronounced voussoirs extending the width of the entrance bay. Further up, an upper cornice sits below the undulating parapet. The central four bays have flat-headed basement windows, enclosed by contemporary iron railings with scrolled heads. Above these are four 3-light transomed glazing bar windows, with a chamfered cill band and moulded shallow-arched heads between banded intermediate piers. A storey band and dentilled cill band accentuate the four upper-floor flat-headed transomed windows which lead to a cornice and shallow parapet. The rear range, of two storeys, was formerly workshops and is now used as offices, accessible via the vehicle entrance.

The interior has been remodelled with a fully glazed inner entrance door and a contemporary staircase. The building is an important element in the setting of St Paul’s Church. It is a finely detailed early 20th-century example of distinctive industrial architecture representative of a manufacturing district within Birmingham, an area now recognised for its international significance. The design integrates the functional divisions of 19th-century manufactories within a contemporary architectural style.