Automotive House

Automotive House is a car factory built between 1905 and 1906, now used as works and was empty at the time of inspection. Designed by Joseph Lavender, F.R.I.B.A., for the Sunbeam Motor Car Company, it is located on the site of the first workshop where a Sunbeam motor car was produced. The building features red brick with painted dressings beneath a Welsh-slated roof.

The three-storey street frontage includes an office and showroom range with a four-bay single-storey north-light workshop range behind. The north-west elevation has three storeys and eleven bays, with a central entry defined by full-height pilasters. The centre bay is slightly advanced and features a double doorway with panelled doors beneath a keyed semi-circular head, all topped by a segmental pediment. Each side of the doorway has a three-light window, originally made up of three sash windows, some of which have been altered, beneath a segmental brick arch with an advanced keyblock that connects to a sloping string course.

Above the first and second floors are coupled sash windows with small-paned upper sashes, a pattern repeated in the two bays flanking the entrance. The two end bays of the frontage are topped by a broad coped gable with a keyed semi-circular arched window above the window head cornice, matching that of the entrance bay. The north-east end bay has full-height double doors that once led into a covered yard. The rear features four bays of north light sheds supported by strutted trusses and a ridge beam, while the three-storey range has strutted king post trusses. Original plans and elevations signed by the architect and dated January 31, 1905, still exist. Automotive House is notable as the first purpose-built works of the Sunbeam Motor Car Company and one of the earliest car factories in England.