Rowheath Pavilion

Rowheath Pavilion is a sports pavilion built around 1924 to designs by John Ramsay Armstrong. It stands on the playing fields of the Cadbury's Chocolate Factory at Bournville. The building is constructed of rendered and colourwashed brick walls with a hipped green pantile roof.

The pavilion rises two storeys, with a taller central section flanked by wings set in line projecting at either side. A single-storey range projects forward on the road front, formed gradually by a series of additions.

The south-eastern elevation faces over a sloping lawn leading to the boating lake and is tripartite and symmetrical. The central section of seven wide bays has a higher ridge and projects forward of the narrower lateral wings. At ground floor level are French windows with arched fan lights above. At either end of the central section are projecting staircase turrets with porthole windows below their gabled roofs. The spandrels between the ground-floor fan lights have brackets supporting a cornice, above which is a central first-floor balcony with brick piers and tile panels. First-floor windows behind the balcony have had their sills dropped and been replaced with uPVC units, set below the eaves. To the centre of the ridge is a clock turret with a gabled roof. Either side are four-bay recessed wings with relieving arches above the ground floor windows and louvered shutters.

The north-western road front is also symmetrical with a projecting single-storey portion to the centre, containing two and four-light casements with wooden shutters. Wings project forward slightly at either end, with doors placed in the flank walls. All phases of addition share the materials of the original building: pantiled roof and pebbledashed and colourwashed walls. First-floor windows on the principal block are tripartite and set close to the deep eaves front, their sills unaltered. Gabled staircase turrets similar to those on the south-east front flank the wings, each with four bays and louvered shutters at ground floor level.

The principal interior space is a large function room extending the full length and depth of the central pavilion at ground floor level. It has wood block flooring and two aisles with panelled square pillars fitted with metal hooks above head height to allow canvas screens to form temporary changing rooms. Seven sets of French windows on the south-east side lead onto the terrace overlooking the lake. Hatches in the north-western wall lead to a kitchen and bar housed in the later extension. At the north-east end is a double staircase, one arm leading to the balcony overlooking the gardens and the other to first-floor offices and storage space. The south-west wing contains former changing rooms now converted to offices and a shower room at ground floor level. The north-eastern wing has been opened up to create a café and kitchen.

The single-storey range to the centre of the north-western road front, added in the later twentieth century and housing the bar and service corridor, is not declared to be of special architectural or historic interest.