23, Ludgate Hill

23 Ludgate Hill is an office building constructed around 1915, with some alterations made in the late 20th century. It is believed to have been built for the Orbito Optical Company. The building features dark red brick with rubbed and moulded brick detailing and has a mansard roof adorned with wide rectangular dormer windows and tall chimneys that break through the eaves. The roof is covered with slate and the design reflects the Queen Anne style.

The building is situated on a rectangular street corner site, with its main façade facing Ludgate Hill. The Ludgate Hill elevation consists of four bays, three storeys, and attics, rising from a shallow moulded brick plinth. The principal entrance is located at the left end, featuring a double doorway with an overlight beneath a shallow segmental rubbed brick arch that has a hood mould. The doorway has late 20th-century joinery. To the right of the entrance, there are three ground floor windows with arched heads and 2-light frames from the late 20th century, all set on stepped brick cills on a moulded brick string. Above this, there is a rubbed brick frieze band, followed by a brick string below the cills of the first floor windows, which are arranged in pairs within brick panels between plain piers. The window openings have arched heads and multi-pane metal frames. The paired upper floor windows feature common brick cills and flat heads with painted lintels, topped by a moulded brick eaves cornice.

In the mansard roof, there is a flat-headed six-light dormer window and a single brick stack to the left. The return elevation to Water Street has five bays, with a single tier of windows to the left and two pairs of windows to the right, all detailed to match the Ludgate Hill façade. There are also three smaller dormers, with a brick stack interrupting the space between the first and second bays.

This early 20th-century office building is an important and well-detailed part of the two street frontages at one of the main approaches to Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter, an area now recognized as a manufacturing district of international significance. It forms a group with No. 21 Ludgate Hill and Nos. 37 and 39 Ludgate Hill.