Office Range

This is an office range of 1906, built by Lowe & Son and designed by F.B. Osborn for Birmingham Corporation, originally serving as part of a tram depot. It is built of red brick with ashlar dressings and Westmorland slate roofs, and displays a Renaissance Revival style. The building has a T-plan and stands two and three storeys high, with a seven-window range.

The facade features a plinth, buttresses, a sill band, a pierced balustrade, coped gables with finials, and ground floor openings mainly boarded. Most windows have stone cross-mullions and label moulds. A projecting gabled centrepiece has a Mannerist ashlar doorcase with pilasters, brackets, a cornice, and a sham balustrade, framing a moulded round arched opening with a double keystone and a fanlight. Above the doorcase is an ashlar oriel window of 1/3/1 lights, also with a balustrade, topped by a round light with a keystone surround within the gable. The side ranges have regular fenestration of three lights, with larger windows on the first floor. Behind the windows are external buttress stacks with tall, ornamented coped flues. A blank single bay projection with a flat roof is situated to the left, and attached to the corner is a square gatepier with an ashlar cap and ball finial, with a slot for a sliding gate. Similar piers are positioned to the left and right corners. The left return is three storeys high, with boarded windows on the lower floors and a two-light window above. A chamfered corner is corbelled at first floor level. The right return is two storeys high, featuring a single off-centre ground floor window and a central three-light window above. A round opening with a keystone surround is in the gable peak.

The rear elevation includes a projecting central bay with chamfered corners, corbelled at first floor level, a two-light window to the first floor, and a round window in the gable. A late 20th-century shelter covers ground floor windows to the left. To the right is a single-storey projection with a flat roof and canted corner, boasting four windows, one a steel casement, with a door to the right. Above this projection are external corridors with a rendered finish, possibly concrete, carried on cast-iron brackets and featuring multiple small windows mirroring the main range. A D-shaped stair enclosure, two storeys high, rusticated and with a rendered finish and conical slate roof, is positioned to the right, featuring a single window on each floor and a door at the foot. The enclosure is metal, likely cast iron, containing a cast iron spiral stair. Two three-light windows are above again on each side. An external stack with ornamentation but lacking a flue is located between the right windows.

The interior was inaccessible at the time of the survey. This office range served as an architectural showcase for a revitalised tram service, launched in January 1907, and incorporated staff recreational and cultural facilities, as well as the usual depot offices.