49, Vyse Street

This is a house and manufactory built around 1850, with minor alterations in the late 20th century. It is constructed of red brick with painted stone dressings and a composition slate roof.

The building occupies a corner plot, with an elongated L-shaped layout and display frontages on both Vyse Street and Hylton Street. A workshop range extends along the Hylton Street frontage, enclosing a narrow yard.

The Vyse Street elevation is two storeys and two bays, featuring a low blue brick plinth, a main doorway to the left, and a shallow display bay window to the right. A two-stepped approach leads to a recessed doorway framed by pilasters, a shallow cornice, and console brackets. The doorway has a panelled door with a rectangular overlight. To the right of the doorway is an overboarded display bay window with bracketed eaves. Above, two margin-glazed sash windows are set within shouldered architrave surrounds, resting on a painted sill band.

The Hylton Street elevation is of two stories with attics, showcasing a wide, asymmetrical gable and an extended corner that joins a three-story workshop range. The gabled part has a deep display window and a smaller sash window on the ground floor, with a later 20th-century opening inserted between them. Above, four windows are arranged, with the two to the right being of different widths and set within shouldered surrounds. Above again, three square windows, the central one being larger, all have moulded surrounds. First and attic floor openings contain margin-glazed sashes. The ground floor openings have shouldered surrounds and shallow cornices on consoles. An attached five-bay workshop range, seemingly contemporary, features a small semi-circular arched window to the left, a doorway, and four shallow arch-headed windows. Bay 3's window is blocked and adapted into a doorway, while bay 5’s is blind. The upper level of the workshop range has multi-pane, cast-iron framed windows set within blue brick arched heads and sill bands. The rear elevation, overlooking the courtyard, has multi-pane workshop windows.

The building’s layout is depicted on the Piggot-Smith map of around 1855. It forms a group with numbers 50 and 51 Vyse Street. This small manufactory with an integrated dwelling represents a notable example of 19th-century industrial architecture, characteristic of a significant Birmingham development recognized internationally.