56-58, SPENCER STREET

A pair of small purpose-built factories of circa 1870-80, later combined to form a single works. The buildings are constructed of red brick with blue brick and painted stone dressings, and slate roofs. They appear on stylistic grounds to be of slightly different dates, with a vertical break in the brickwork between the buildings confirming this. It is probable that No. 56 is slightly earlier in date than No. 58.

Each building has a three-storey range facing onto the street, comprising three bays. Each originally contained a showroom on the ground floor with a lobby leading to a staircase that provides access to offices or warehousing on the upper floors. The continuous window at second floor level on No. 58 indicates its probable original use as a workshop. The rear yard is approached through an archway in the facade of No. 56 and is flanked by ranges of shopping (workshop space). Originally both were of three storeys, but the northern range was damaged during the Second World War and repaired as a range of two storeys.

The street front of No. 56 features blue brick and painted stone dressings with a cornice above the ground floor fascia and sill bands beneath the first and second floor windows, and a heavy bracketed cornice to the top of the wall. The ground floor has a central window with stone sill, flanked by cambered-headed doorways; the right-hand door leads to the yard and the left-hand door leads to a lobby and staircase. The three first floor sash windows have plate glass panes and segment heads with alternating brick and stone voussoirs and a continuous hood mould. Decorative cogged bands of red and blue bricks sit beneath the first and second floor windows. No. 58 has a renewed shop window to the ground floor at left, which appears from marks in the brickwork to have been enlarged. At right, a panelled door with iron reinforcing band leads to a lobby which has brass lettering in the floor reading 'F. HARDING / & / SON'. At right again is a passage door which leads to a side door and the rear shopping wing. The first floor sashes each have a projecting cornice supported on brackets. The second floor is a continuous window of six lights with a sill of moulded bricks, indicating the use of this floor as workshop space. Both addresses have iron letter boxes of the Birmingham type set into the wall with arched tops. The yard has brick paving. The metal windows to the rear of the street range are renewed and apparently enlarged. Projecting at either side are the shopping wings. The southern wing is in largely original condition and has cambered heads to seven windows at ground and first floor levels, with blue brick headers above the arch and metal-framed windows. The second floor has similar metal-framed windows with wooden lintels and a lean-to slate roof. The northern wing has had larger openings inserted at ground floor level, with brick piers and H-beam lintels. The first floor arrangement coincides with that of the southern wing, although two of the metal windows have been removed. At the western end of the yard an extension has been added, running north-south in the early 20th century. This has walling of stretcher bond brickwork and an eastern-facing skylight.

No. 56 has a lobby at the foot of the stairs and a straight flight of steep stairs leading up to both upper floors with a quarter-turn winder to the top. This has gas brackets to the sides of the well, a skylight and an internal window to light the front room at second floor level. The staircase to No. 58 also survives intact, although the upper part is not used due to an archway created in the party walling at second floor level. There is a fixed seat to the first floor landing. Long work benches for presses and stamps survive to the ground floor shopping on both sides of the yard, and peg benches are present in the ground floor of No. 56 and at first floor level in No. 58. Chimney breasts with forge openings survive to the rear walls in both ranges of shopping in the street-front ranges. The cellar beneath No. 56 has a series of three substantial alcoves with cambered heads which may have been intended to house safes. The design of No. 56 is similar in several respects to that of Nos. 27-28 Warstone Lane and 67-69 Warstone Lane, and it is possible that the same architect designed all three buildings.

The Ordnance Survey map of 1890 shows shopping to the rear, together with a marked line, presumably a dividing wall, running along the length of the yard. By the time of the 1904 edition this had been removed, and this period may well mark the time of combined ownership and the building of the present matched shopping wings. Both of these ranges were originally of three storeys, but damage in the Second World War meant that the northern range was reduced in height to two storeys with a flat roof. In the early 20th century a further two-storey range was built across the width of the yard, backing onto the end wall and incorporating parts of the earlier ranges at either side. The ground floor openings facing onto the yard of the north wing were widened and new H-beam lintels were inserted in the early 20th century. In the later 20th century the entrance to the north cellar was created with its steps down from the yard. The buildings are now divided and rented as separate workshops although they all fall within one ownership. For the most part they continue to operate as jewellery and silver workshops.