8,9 And 10, Tenby Street North

This is a manufactory, built in 1879 with later 20th-century alterations. Designed by Osborne and Reading, architects, for W.H. Ashford, it is constructed of red brick with blue brick detailing, and has a Welsh slated roof, hipped at the north end. The building occupies a narrow, wedge-shaped footprint, originally part of the plot of a detached house, and incorporates a covered vehicle bay.

The front elevation has a narrow end to the left and rises three stories above a basement, with five bays of grouped windows arranged 3:4:4:3:2. Each group is set beneath a continuous painted flat lintel, with sloping blue brick cills and multi-paned metal window frames, the central panes of which are pivot lights. A wide goods entrance is located in bay 2 at the north end, featuring a fanlight grille under a segmental arched head. A wide doorway at the centre provides access to a loading bay, while a pedestrian entrance to the right has double 3-panel doors. The south end bay features an office entrance with double 3-panel doors, also under a segmental arched head. Between these openings are clusters of 2 and 3 arch-headed window openings. A canted oriel window with undivided sash frames sits above the office doorway, and a pair of windows with flat brick arch heads and a small pediment are located on the second floor. A plain coped gable is present at the south end.

The interior originally included workshops accessed by a stair at the north end, and an office stairway leading to first and second-floor offices from the main entrance. Plans for the building indicate hearths along the blind rear wall and muffle tanks to manage dust and dirt from the workshops. The building was designed to provide workshop and office space across all levels, including the basement, which was used for polishing.

The building forms a group with numbers 11-14 Denby Street North and 57-59 Denby Street North. It represents a purpose-built manufactory from 1879, designed to maximize natural light into manufacturing workshops on all levels, and reflects the demand for industrial premises in a specialist manufacturing district of Birmingham at the end of the 19th century, now of international significance.