35-39, WARSTONE LANE

BIRMINGHAM

997/0/10252 WARSTONE LANE 29-APR-04 35-39

GV II Terrace of shops and workshops, formerly houses and post office. c.1850, with late C19 alteration, further altered late C20. Red brick with stone dressings, Nos. 35-38 now with painted render to street frontage, ridge and gable stacks and a Welsh slate roof covering. PLAN: L-plan development on 2 street frontages with shared passage access to small rear yards from both Warstone Lane and Vittoria Street EXTERIOR: Warstone Lane elevation of 9 bays, 3 storeys, with 4 ground floor shop fronts, all with doorways and display windows, and 4 smaller display windows to No.39 at right-hand end. Windows to Nos. 35 and 38 are late C20, the 2 inner windows retain C19 surrounds with stall risers, moulded brackets and fascias. Windows to No. 39 with moulded surrounds and flat lintels with projecting keyblocks and sills with massive block brackets. First-floor openings have tripartite sash frames without glazing bars to 6 left-hand bays with modified heads and sills. Bay 7 with C20 frame below bracketed cornice, bays 8 and 9 with 6 over 6 pane sashes below cambered lintels with bracketed cornices. Upper floor windows are shallow 3 over 3 pane sashes, except that to bay 7, which has a C20 frame. Deep bracketed eaves cornice. Entrance within splayed corner with bolection-moulded surround and advanced scrolled keystone to flat head. C20 metal doors. Above, slightly inset corner with painted ashlar plaque inscribed 'NORTHAMPTON PARADE'. To the right, triple display windows detailed as the Warstone Lane elevation, a single window formerly sashed, now with C20 frame, and a semi-circular arch-headed passage doorway . Above, 3, 6 over 6 pane sashes to first floor, the right hand opening set at a higher level. Transomed 4-light C20 workshop window to upper floor, with small 6 over 6 pane sash to right. HISTORY: The buildings were constructed as terrace of 3-storeyed houses, and are shown on the Piggot-Smith map of c.1855 with small rear yards and domestic outbuildings. Sales particulars for Nos. 35 and 26 in 1870 describe the buildings as 'substantial and newly-erected dwelling houses', each with 'a small shop at the back, with private yard and outbuildings.' Nos. 37 and 38 both had retail shops. The 1889 Ordnance Survey map identifies No. 39 as a post office. The terrace forms part of a group with Nos. 97 and 99 Vittoria Street (q.v.) A terrace of c.1840 dwellings, rapidly adapted to commercial and industrial use in a period of dynamic development within this specialist manufacturing district of Birmingham now recognised as being of international significance.