37, 37A & 38, VYSE STREET

BIRMINGHAM

997/0/10359 VYSE STREET 29-APR-04 37, 37A & 38

GV II Range of shops and workshops, formerly houses . 1848 with late C19 extensions, further altered late C20. Red brick, roughcast and painted to ground floor , painted stone dressings and a composition slate roof. PLAN: Irregular U-shaped plan, with frontage range and L-shaped workshop range to rear enclosing small courtyard. EXTERIOR: 2 storey frontage range of 6 bays, with 4 grouped doorways to centre, within a wide advanced surround with flanking Ionic columns.. A wide stepped display fascia is carried across the head of the columns. The doors are set within panelled reveals, and have rectangular overlights with margin glazing. Flanking the doorways are 2-light windows with undivided sash frames within moulded architraves ,forming shop display windows. The outer doorways have 4-panel doors to shop entrances , the inner doorways leading to staircases to upper floor workshops. 6 upper floor windows set on painted cill band, each with a moulded lintel and shallow bracketed cornice above an undivided sash window. Rear range of 2-storey workshops on southern and western sides of rear courtyard. HISTORY: This range appears to be a single development of 2 houses, intended for 4 occupants The 1889 Ordnance Survey map shows extensive rear workshop additions. Forms a group with No.38 Vyse Street (q.v.) and Nos. 40 and 41 Vyse Street (q.v.) A pair of mid-C19 houses, apparently designed for multiple occupancy, rapidly adapted and extended for industrial use , with extensive surviving rear 'shopping'. The buildings form part of a prominent and boldly-detailed development of domestic properties on a street frontage now almost all given over to works premises , within a specialist manufacturing quarter of Birmingham now recognised as being of international significance.