6, Legge Lane

This building is a former works, originally designed as a terrace of four houses with attached workshops. Constructed in 1885, it has undergone alterations in the late 20th century. The building was designed by William Tadman Foulkes for Bishton and Fletcher, jewellery manufacturers. It is built of red brick with stone dressings, blue brick detailing, truncated mid-slope chimneys, and a slate roof.

The building is arranged as two pairs of houses with attached workshop ranges, enclosing two sub-divided rear courtyards on an irregularly shaped plot with a curved frontage onto Legge Lane. The Legge Lane elevation has six bays and three storeys. Formerly with doorways in bays 2 and 5, and three-light windows in the other bays, the facade has been altered to enlarge or reduce some of the openings, although the pattern of openings on the upper floors remains largely unchanged. Moulded cill and lintel bands delineate the different storeys, with shallow brick pilasters defining the varying bay widths. Decorative brick eaves are located above the second-floor lintels. Workshop ranges extend from the rear walls, including a back-to-back range in the centre with a pitched roof and monopitch-roofed ranges to the sides. These workshops originally had shallow arch-headed windows on the ground and first floors and flat-headed openings on the third floor. Chimney stacks rise from the workshop hearths. Grouped door openings were used to provide access to both the domestic rear kitchens and the workshops.

The interiors were not inspected.

The building appears to be a speculative development by Bishton and Fletcher of Standard Works on Albion Street. It provided domestic accommodation with integral offices located above the rear kitchens, with access via a separate rear stair. Access to the houses was through two shared passages, which led to the divided rear courtyards.

The complex is a speculative development of houses with purpose-built attached workshops. It appears to have been intended for small manufacturers who wished to live close to their workplaces. It is a planned example of the combined dwelling and workshop tradition, originally based on the conversion of domestic premises in the early 19th century. This building type is distinctive to the specialist manufacturing district of Birmingham and is now recognised as being of international significance.