Edgbaston Pumping Station including attached store room, standby generator room and ornamented chimney stack

Edgbaston Pumping Station

A water pumping station completed in 1862, designed by John Henry Chamberlain for Birmingham Corporation. The building comprises one and two storeys with a basement, together with an attached store room, standby generator room, and an ornamental chimney stack in the form of a campanile with four stages.

The structure is constructed in red brick laid in English bond with blue brick diapering and stone dressings. The roof is covered in alternating bands of plain and fishscale slates.

The east front is divided into four gabled bays. The left-hand bay is taller than the others and projects slightly. Its lower body contains a pair of half-glazed doors reached by an external staircase with stone treads. These doors have a segmental head and are flanked by buttresses with offsets on either side. The gable features stone kneelers and coping, with a cusped circular window set within a recessed panel decorated with chevron brick patterns and alternating red and blue brick voussoirs. Immediately to the right is a bay containing a reduced archway at ground floor level, formerly connecting to a now-demolished forebuilding. This opening has been infilled with twentieth-century brickwork and fitted with double doors to the centre; a stone head surmounts the original arch, above which a stone corbel projects. Above this is a smaller circular window with quatrefoil tracery, set in an equally decorated recessed panel with voussoirs. The two bays to the right contain a single large arch between them. At either side of these bays is a lattice pattern of diapering, and the gables above carry two circular windows each with trefoil patterns. Penthouses crown the ridge of each gabled roof. Projecting stone corbels and cut H-beams indicate the former attachment points of the demolished forebuilding's roof.

The south front features a projecting block at the right containing two tall lancet windows divided by a buttress with offsets. These lancets have metal-framed fenestration. Below the left window is a door with a cambered arch; both this door and the lower portion of the window have been blocked with brick infill. A dentilled cornice runs along the top of the wall, and the roof slope above contains four gabled dormer windows. Recessed to the left stands the campanile chimney, connected to the main block by a low range with a pointed arch forming a pedestrian passageway.

The campanile tower is distinguished by decorative string courses and bands of stone and blue brick arranged across its four principal stages, each repeated on all sides. The lowest stage contains three lancets with joined heads. The stage above features a two-light opening with trefoil heads to each light and a quatrefoil in the ashlar apex. The third stage has a single lancet centred on each side, above which runs a decorative sculpted flush band incorporating quatrefoils. The topmost stage carries a two-light opening to each side with panels of rich carving below, each opening having a stone mullion at centre and cusped heads to the lights. Console brackets support the projecting balcony that encircles the tower, which is fitted with a wrought iron balustrade. Behind the balcony stands the octagonal, panelled flue. At the top, a truncated spire forms the mouth of the chimney. A tall battered buttress against the lower body of the south front of the tower may be a later addition.

The west front displays the projecting tower at the left, with three gables carrying circular windows to its right, as on the east front. A lean-to projection partially masks the lower body of this elevation.

The north face shows the tower at the right, with the north face of one of the former engine halls to its left, which contains four round-headed windows. The penthouse to the ridge has wooden panels to its side decorated with quatrefoils.

The interior was not fully inspected for health and safety reasons. Views through windows indicate that two of the former engine halls are now empty, and a back-up generator for the site is believed to occupy another space.