Numbers 498-506 With Attached Gatepiers And Railings

Printing Works with Office Range, and Attached House

This complex comprises a printing works with office range dating from 1904-1924, and an attached 18th-century house with early 20th-century alterations. The buildings are located on Moseley Road and retain their original gatepiers and railings.

The main factory elevation facing Moseley Road is in Neo-Georgian style, built of brick with stone detailing. The 1924 office range is rectangular on plan, running east-west, and comprises a single depth suite of offices with large print workshops to the rear. It adjoins the earlier factory range of 1904-7, which runs north-south at the rear, creating an L-shaped plan overall. The workshops are brick-built with metal frame construction to the interior.

The main elevation comprises three storeys and five bays, with basement and parapet. The bays at either end project forward, featuring doorways to the ground floor with heavy doorcasings and alternate projecting stones in the voussoirs, with scrolls to the keystone and string course above. The first and second floors of these end bays are articulated by alternate bands of brick and stone, now painted cream. Each storey has a single window—six-over-six pane sashes set in stone dressings. The central section bays each have a pair of similar windows; those to the first floor have arched tops with projecting keystones and stone cills. The second floor windows have shallow projecting brick aprons. The parapet over the central range has a dentil cornice with a scroll at the centre, matching those on the ground floor doorways. The printing workshops to the rear are two storeys with banks of north lights to the northern elevation and segmental-headed windows with timber casements to the south. The western elevation facing the inner courtyard has brick-built bays with heavy cornices at either end, with four bays of full-height metal-framed windows between them.

Myrtle Cottage is attached to the main range facing Moseley Road and communicates with the office suite. It is a two-storey house of rendered brick with a slate-covered hipped roof and brick stacks. It features full-height bow windows and a flamboyant central porch.

The office suite is single depth with glass panel doors and tongue and groove clad partitions. The timber staircase has plain stick balusters and Art Deco-inspired newel posts and pendants. A decorative cast-iron spiral staircase at the rear rises throughout all four floors, including the cellar, which is fitted out with washing and lavatory facilities and a strongroom. The original factory range has a steel internal structure supported on round profile columns, with the central section of each workshop originally open to the roof with a gallery running around all four sides. The open floor has been filled in but the structure remains intact. The second factory range has two full floors of similar construction.

The cottage interior dates almost entirely from the early 20th century. The former director's office has decorative hardwood panelling, part hung with embossed leather, an Art Nouveau stained-glass window, and a large fireplace with integral seating to either side. The remainder of the house has similarly high-quality early 20th-century detailing. The stair is an open string type with two balusters to each tread, a ramped handrail at the top, and a projecting curtail step with wreathed handrail.

J H Butcher and Co. Ltd was an established printing firm in the 1890s, initially based in New Street, Birmingham. In 1896, J H Butcher brought water-slide transfers to the UK from Germany, where the technique had been developed, to supply them to Birmingham's cycle trade. By 1904 the venture had been so successful that he purchased the Moseley Road site, which included the 18th-century Myrtle Cottage. The first factory was constructed to the rear of the plot and opened in 1907. The cottage was the home of the Butcher family and was altered in the early 20th century to create fashionable bow-shaped bays rising from the ground and first floors. By the First World War, Butchers were established as market leaders in the country. The business expanded further when Ernest, the son of J H Butcher, became a pioneer of silk-screen printing in Britain after discovering the technique whilst training in America. The new office range and factory adjacent to Myrtle Cottage were constructed to provide additional space and were completed in 1924. This arrangement allowed the family immediate access to the works at all times.

The complex represents a rare survival of a printing factory that has remained in its original use and ownership since 1904-1924, with minimal alterations to the fabric. The office range has special architectural interest in its well-handled Neo-Georgian façade, with architectural distinction in its sophisticated use of materials and classical forms. The workshops clearly reflect their purpose through extensive north lights and lofty open spaces to accommodate large-scale machinery. J H Butcher and Co were associated with the introduction and development of important printing techniques, becoming one of the largest businesses of its kind in the country by the Second World War, intimately linked with Birmingham's manufacturing firms, particularly the cycle trade, to which it supplied transfers and printed matter. The fact that the family remained resident on the site rather than relocating to the suburbs adds to the buildings' special interest. The complex demonstrates strong group value with the adjacent School of Art (listed Grade II), from which it recruited many designers, and the Library and Public Baths opposite (listed Grade II), which would have provided facilities for print workers.