Gatehouse And Adjoining Office Buildings At Soho Foundry

Gatehouse and Adjoining Office Buildings at Soho Foundry, Smethwick

A gatehouse and office building designed by the Birmingham architectural practice Buckland and Heywood for the Avery Company and built in 1925. The building is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with stone dressings and concrete columns. A shallow pantiled roof covers the porch, while the office range behind the parapet has a flat roof.

The east front onto Foundry Road features a portico of painted concrete with three bays, the central bay being the widest. Two octagonal pillars with pilasters in antis have simple moulded capitals and block bases, with an entablature above. The wall behind has brick pilasters. A cambered arch at the centre is surmounted by lettering reading "SOHO FOUNDRY", and on either side the bays have metal-framed windows. Between floors are tablets inscribed with the name "AVERY" and the company trade mark, which shows the central pivot point of a weighing arm. Inset bands of pantiles provide decorative effect. To the left, a single bay connects the gateway to an earlier office building from the 1890s. To the right of the gateway extends a seven-bay office block with pilaster buttresses of chamfered angles and two-light windows featuring a central moulded mullion and thin stone surround. The basement has paired lights with cambered heads. The north side has three slit windows to each floor. The north and west sides have a full basement which is exposed due to the fall in the land. The west side of the gateway features a trio of basket-arched entrances, above which are metal-framed windows. The south side of the office block, projecting from the left of the gateway, has two bays divided by pilaster buttresses matching the eastern front. Adjoining to the left is Smethwick Office Row (Grade II), including the former house of William Murdock. In front of the west front of the gateway stands a large weighbridge with a metal surface marked "AVERY / BIRMINGHAM - ENGLAND".

The interior ground floor contains a central passageway with glazed screen walls dividing the offices on either side. The staircases have simple stick balusters and square newels with panelled sides. A sizeable ground floor room in the office block to the north of the gateway has a ceiling whose cornice incorporates the Avery trade mark motif—a triangular balancing point at the centre of a beam weight. The room also contains a mural frieze depicting the opening of the Soho Foundry, showing figures in eighteenth-century dress. At the centre is an inscription reading "OPENING CEREMONY AT SOHO FOUNDRY BY MATTHEW BOULTON / 30 JANUARY 1796" and below it a longer inscription: "I COME NOW AS THE FATHER OF SOHO TO CONSECRATE THIS PLACE AS ONE OF ITS BRANCHES. I ALSO COME TO GIVE IT A NAME AND MY BENEDICTION. I WILL, THEREFORE, PROCEED TO PURIFY THE WALLS OF IT BY THE SPRINKLING OF WINE, AND IN THE NAME OF VULCAN AND ALL THE GODS AND GODDESSES OF FIRE AND WATER I PRONOUNCE THE NAME OF IT SOHO FOUNDRY. MAY THAT NAME ENDURE FOR EVER AND EVER AND LET ALL THE PEOPLE SAY AMEN".

The building is listed for its strong architectural presence, its design by the acknowledged Birmingham practice Buckland and Heywood, its celebration of the illustrious manufacturing history of the site, and its relationship with the adjoining Smethwick Office Row (Grade II).