4-5, Mary Street

A manufactory, built around 1876, with minor alterations in the late 20th century. It is believed to have been built for Thomas Woolley, an electroplater from Caroline Street, Birmingham. The building is constructed of red brick with painted stone dressings, painted and blue brick banding, and a Welsh slate roof.

The building has an asymmetrical U-shaped plan, initially encompassing offices, warehousing, and workshops. It features a street frontage range and an attached L-shaped, two-storey shopping range which formerly enclosed a narrow rear courtyard, now overbuilt.

The street frontage has a symmetrical five-bay design, three storeys high above a cellar, rising from a plain blue brick plinth. The central doorway has a semi-circular arch with a painted moulded brick surround, hood mould, and stops. Above the panelled door is a semi-circular overlight. Flanking the doorway are window openings with shallow segmental brick arches, advanced keystones, and an undulating continuous hood mould. The upper floor windows are similarly detailed and set on a painted brick cill band. The ground and first floor windows have late 20th century transom frames, while the upper floor openings retain multi-pane cast-iron frames. At the rear, a three-storey workshop range with monopitch roofs extends from the north-east end of the frontage range. These workshop ranges have closely-spaced segmental-arch headed windows, some of which retain cast-iron frames.

Inside, remnants of powered machinery remain as line shafting on the upper floor of the frontage range. There is a shallow-pitch single purlin roof with queen strut trusses. An annealing furnace is preserved in the rear wall of the frontage range.

The manufactory was originally built for Thomas Woolley, who also occupied adjacent buildings on Caroline Street. From 1930, it was occupied by W. Bayliss and Sons Ltd, manufacturers of spun and pressed silver and electro-plate.

The building represents a little-altered, purpose-built late 19th century manufactory, incorporating an extensive L-shaped range of workshops. Its compact plan and distinctive detailing are characteristic of developments in a historically significant industrial quarter of Birmingham, now recognised for its international importance.