36, Tenby Street

BIRMINGHAM

997/0/10276 TENBY STREET 29-APR-04 36

II Small manufactory. Late C19 and early C20. Red brick with slate roof covering: remodelled frontage of dark red brick with concrete dressings and detailing. PLAN. Elongated L-plan with narrow street frontage range and long 4-part storeyed workshop range extending eastwards the full length of a narrow plot and enclosing a narrow passage to the south. EXTERIOR: Early C20 frontage range of 3 storeys above a basement. 2 bays, with coupled doorways beneath a common lintel to the right, the outermost opening the entry to the side passage, that to the left the frontage range entrance. Left of the doorways, a triple sash window beneath a lintel band which extends over the multi-pane doorway overlights to the right. The upper sashes have glazing bars, as do the windows to the first and second floors, arranged in 2 groups of 3 sash frames in recessed panels defined by brick piers. Deep brick aprons below upper floor window openings, and with eaves band forming lintel to second floor openings. Window openings diminish in height at each ascending storey. Rear elevation to frontage range has multi-paned cast-iron windows at stair landing levels. Extending from the rear is a 4-phase range of late C19 workshops, the nearest 2 phases of 11 and 7 bays of 3 storeys, the remaining parts of 6 and 4 bays of 2 storeys. Ground and first floor workshop window have small pane cast-iron frames beneath segmental brick arches of red and blue brick, the openings with chamfered surrounds and blue brick cills. Upper floor window openings with wooden lintels. Ground floor doorways give access to stairs to upper floors. Monopitch slate roofs with rear wall stacks to workshop hearths. HISTORY: The site had not been developed at the time of the Piggot- Smith map of 1861. The 1886-87 Ordnance Survey map shows workshops extending from a vacant front yard where the present street frontage range now stands. Forms a group with Nos. 28-29 Tenby Street (q.v.)and Nos.30-31 Tenby Street (q.v.) SOURCE: Cattell, J Ely, S and Jones, B 2002. The Birmingham Jewellery Quarter. An Architectural Survey of the Manufactories.

A small late C19 manufactory, which underwent rapid expansion into the early C20 with successive phases of workshop construction behind a narrow street frontage. The site illustrates the economic buoyancy and distinctive architectural character of a C19 industrial quarter of Birmingham, now recognised as being of international significance.