175, Hockley Hill

BIRMINGHAM

997/0/10308 HOCKLEY HILL 29-APR-04 175

II Commercial building, latterly bank and presently shop. Late C19 with minor late C20 alterations. Red brick with ashlar sandstone drssings and terracotta detailing. Roof coverings of slate with lead sheet to tower and dormers. PLAN: L-shaped plan on prominent street corner site with lower additions to rear in the angle of the main ranges. EXTERIOR: Hockley Hill elevation. 5 bay front, made up of central tower, with 2 bay part to right of 2 storeys with attics, and 2 bays at 11/2 height to the left, all rising from a shallow chamfered plinth. Tower with moulded shouldered surround to doorway below elaborate overlight with segmental-arched head and pediment hood. Above, occulus with pediment hood, and with storey band of adjacent ranges terminating at its surround. Upper storey with quoins and a tall, semi-circular arch-headed window with a barred sash frame. Deep bracketed eaves below bell-shaped leaded tower cap. 2-bay part to left of tower with quoins and a pair of tall, wide semi-circular arch -headed windows with transom lights . Window mullions are diminutive Ionic columns. Above, storey band, and rectangular carved ashlar panels with pierced terracotta parapet set above bracketed eaves cornice. Taller bays to right, with 2 ground floor windows matching those to the left and with 2 tripartite sashes within shallow arch headed surrounds to first floor below parapet and cornice. Steep hipped roof incorporates dormer with segmental pediment head. Angled corner at junction of Hockley Hill and Well Street with pedimented hood on ashlar brackets with moulded pilaster jambs and panelled double doors. Well Street elevation with first 2 bays detailed as 2 storey bays to Hockley Hill, but with shallow chimney stack corbelled from first floor level, and running through the parapet. Narrow single bay angled return leads to recessed single bay with wide transomed 2-light window with shallow- arch head, and 2 light upper floor window with central mullion overlight set below simplified eaves and solid brick parapet. This and the lower bays to the right, a wider bay with simplified tripartite windows with sash frames, and a narrow secondary entrance bay with doorway below stilted overlight have separate hipped roofs running back from the street frontage. A prominent and eclectically-detailed late C19 commercial building, little -altered externally and forming a significant group with No. 64, Great Hampton Street at the northern extremity of the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter. The subsequent change of use is a further manifestation of the change from a residential to an industrial district, in the wake of the expansion of the Jewellery Quarter in the late C19.