4-5, Mary Street

BIRMINGHAM

997/0/10248 MARY STREET 29-APR-04 4-5

II Manufactory. c. 1876, with minor late C20 alterations and additions. Believed to have been built for Thomas Woolley, electroplater of Caroline Street, Birmingham. Red brick with painted stone dressings, painted and blue brick banding and a Welsh slate roof covering. PLAN: Asymmetrical U-plan, incorporating offices, warehousing and workshops, with street frontage range and attached L-shaped storeyed shopping range enclosing narrow rear courtyard, now overbuilt. EXTERIOR: Symmetrical 5-bay street frontage of 3 storeys above a cellar, rising from plain blue brick plinth. Central doorway with semi-circular arch headed surround of painted moulded brick with hood mould and stops. Semi circular overlight above a panelled door, flanked by window openings beneath shallow segmental brick arches with advanced keystones, beneath an undulating continuous hood mould. Upper floor windows are similarly detailed, and rise from a painted brick cill band . Upper floor openings are set on a painted cill band and have flat brick heads with arched soffits beneath a blue brick band. Ground and first floor windows have late C20 transom frames, whilst the upper floor openings retain multi-pane cast-iron frames. To the rear, an L-shaped range of 3 storey workshops extends from the north - east end of the frontage range. The workshop ranges have monopitch roofs, and closely-spaced segmental-arch headed windows, some retaining cast-iron frames. INTERIOR: Evidence of powered machinery survives in the form of line shafting to the upper floor of the frontage range. Shallow-pitch single purlin roof with queen strut trusses. An annealing furnace survives in the rear wall of the frontage range. HISTORY: The works were built for Thomas Woolley who occupied adjacent buildings fronting onto Caroline Street. The building was occupied from 1930 by W. Bayliss and Sons Ltd, manufacturers of spun and pressed silver and electro-plate. SOURCE: Cattell, J Ely, S and Jones, B 2002. The Birmingham Jewellery Quarter: An Architectural Survey of the Manufactories. A little-altered, purpose-built late C19 manufactory retaining an extensive L-shaped range of 3 storey 'shopping '. Its compact plan form and distinctive detailing characterise late C19 development in a notable industrial quarter of Birmingham, now recognised as being of international significance.