175, Hockley Hill

This is a late 19th-century commercial building, later used as a bank and currently a shop, situated on a prominent corner plot. The building is constructed of red brick with ashlar sandstone dressings and terracotta detailing, covered by slate roofing with lead sheeting to the tower and dormers.

The building has an L-shaped plan, with lower additions to the rear where the main ranges meet. The front elevation to Hockley Hill features five bays, including a central tower, a two-storey section with attics to the right, and two bays of 1½ storeys to the left, all rising from a shallow, chamfered plinth. The tower has a moulded doorway surround, topped by an elaborate overlight with a segmental arched head and a pediment hood. Above this is an oculus with a pediment hood, and a storey band which terminates at the tower surround. The upper storey features quoins and a tall, semi-circular arch-headed window with a barred sash frame. Deep bracketed eaves lead to a bell-shaped lead tower cap. To the left of the tower, a two-bay section has quoins and a pair of tall, wide, semi-circular arch-headed windows with transom lights; the window mullions are diminutive Ionic columns. Above, there is a storey band and rectangular carved ashlar panels with a pierced terracotta parapet set above a bracketed eaves cornice. The taller bays to the right have two ground-floor windows matching those to the left, and two tripartite sash windows within shallow arch-headed surrounds to the first floor, below a parapet and cornice. A steep hipped roof incorporates a dormer with a segmental pediment head. The corner junction of Hockley Hill and Well Street is marked by a pedimented hood on ashlar brackets with moulded pilaster jambs and panelled double doors.

The Well Street elevation has the first two bays detailed as two-storey bays, similar to the Hockley Hill elevation, but with a shallow chimney stack corbelled from the first-floor level and running through the parapet. A narrow, angled return leads to a recessed single bay with a wide transomed two-light window with a shallow arch head, and a two-light upper floor window with a central mullion and overlight, set below simplified eaves and a solid brick parapet. This, with the lower bays to the right, comprises a wider bay with simplified tripartite windows and sash frames, and a narrow secondary entrance bay with a doorway below a stilted overlight, all having separate hipped roofs that run back from the street frontage.

It is a prominent, eclectically-detailed late 19th-century commercial building, with minor alterations and forming a significant group with No. 64, Great Hampton Street, at the northern edge of the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter. The change of use reflects the shift from a residential to an industrial area following the expansion of the Jewellery Quarter in the late 19th century.