Listed Secular Buildings in Central Birmingham
This is a directory of secular listed buildings in central Birmingham.
This website also contains a directory of secular listed buildings in inner and suburban Birmingham.
The Argent Centre is at the corner of Frederick Street and Legge Road on Newhall Hill in the Jewellery Quarter. It is a former pen factory that was converted into an office block in 1993.
The original building was designed by J.E. Poland in the early 1860's. It has an L-shaped-plan that enabled the construction of long narrow workshops illuminated by natural light on both sides.
The renaissance-style exterior was built in red brick with stone and buff brick dressings, bandings and chequerwork. The arcades feature corner towers that once terminated in tiled spires. The polychrome-banded square chimney once fed surplus steam to a suite of Turkish baths on the north side.
The building is fireproof; its flat roof is asphalted; the individual floors are paved with brick and punctuated by flat hollow brick arches.
Links: Jewellery Quarter Jewellery Quarter Conservation Area
The former Geest Banana Warehouse is on Fazeley Street in Eastside. Built in red-brick in 1840, it features bricked-up segmental wall arches and a rear canopy of modern asbestos sheeting supported by early Victorian iron columns.
The canopy overhangs the Warwick Bar stop-lock at the junction of the Digbeth Branch Canal and the Birmingham and Warwick canal.
Links: Eastside Warwick Bar Conservation Area
Baskerville House is on Centenary Square in the Convention Quarter. It was built in the 1930's as part of a proposed new civic park on the site of a back-filled canal basin. Work was interrupted by the Second World War and Baskerville House, designed as a single range of a far larger building, was never completed.
Baskerville House is named after John Baskerville: an 18th century atheist printer who once lived near the site. It housed the city planning department until redeveloped in 2003; the original 5 storey interior was then demolished and replaced by a 7-storey office block whose upper 2 floors protrude above the retained facade. A lighting scheme by Hoare Lee creates a spectacular glowing rim at night.
Links: Convention Quarter John Baskerville
Bell Edison Telephone Exchange
The Bell Edison Telephone Building is on the corner of Newhall Street and Edmund Street in the Business Quarter. It was designed in the 1890's by Chamberlain & Martin in their Venetian Gothic style and features elaborate terracotta mouldings beneath the gables and on the upper piers between the bays.
The building, which is now an office block, contained the Birmingham central telephone exchange from 1897 until 1936. The logo of the National Telephone Company is still visible in the porch. The basement was converted into a radiation-proof bunker in the 1950's.
Links: Business Quarter Colmore Row Conservation Area
Big Brum is a clocktower on Chamberlain Square in Business Quarter. It forms part of an extension to the Council House whose main facade is on Victoria Square.
Designed by Yeoville Thomason, the 46-metre-high clocktower was built in stone with a tiled roof in 1885. The clock has a 4.5 metre pendulum; its Westminster chimes can be heard throughout the city centre.
Links: Business Quarter Colmore Row Conservation Area
The Birmingham Mint, established by Ralph Heaton II in Bath Street in 1851, re-located to Icknield Street in the Jewellery Quarter in 1860. Only this Italianate red-brick range on Icknield Street remains. The other three ranges, which were centred around an internal arcaded courtyard, have been demolished.
The Birmingham Mint was once the world's largest independent mint. In its heyday, it produced huge quantities of coinage for the UK, colonial and foreign governments. The business subsequently diversified into tokens, medals, brass sheeting and copper tubes as national mints became less dependent on independent contractors. The Icknield Street premises closed in 2003.
Links: Jewellery Quarter Jewellery Quarter Conservation Area
The Bonser Warehouse (1860) is on Digbeth High Street; it is a tall narrow building with a pyramidal slate roof that was built in brick with stone dressings for the iron merchants Bonser & Co. Their name is inscribed on the door lintel beneath an iron-framed fanlight whose arch is enclosed by a keystone inscribed "warehouse".
The first floor is illuminated by a two-light window beneath a broad stone arch with decorative frieze.
Links: Digbeth Digbeth, Deritend and Bordesley High Streets Conservation Area
The Council House is in Victoria Square in the Business Quarter; it was built to a design by Yeoville Thomason in 1874-79.
The main facade consists of a three-bay central portico flanked by two symmetrical eight-bay wings that terminate in advanced outer bays with segmental pediments. The mass is unified by a dome, lantern and spire seated on a drum above the apex of the central portico.
The interior contains council offices, committee rooms, the Council Chamber, the Mayoral Suite, a Banqueting Hall with minstrel's gallery and a grand staircase beneath the dome.
Links:
Business Quarter
Colmore
Row Conservation Area
Curzon Street Railway Station in Eastside was designed by Philip Hardwick in the classical Ionic style and built in ashlar stone in 1838.
It is a three-bay, three-storey cube whose principal facade features four Ionic columns and a dentilled entablature. The main entrance is through a panelled doorway beneath a glazed tympanum crowned by a sculptural relief of the London & Birmingham Railway coat-of-arms.
Curzon Street Station was the original terminus of the Birmingham - Euston line. The terminus moved to New Street in 1854. However, Curzon Street remained a goods station until it finally closed in 1966.
A plaque affixed to the building states that George Stephenson founded the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in 1847 at the neighbouring Queens Hotel which has been demolished.
Links: Eastside
Devonshire House is on High Street Deritend in Digbeth. It was built in the 1890's as offices for the Bird Custard factory which occupied an adjoining three acre site.
The building became semi-derelict after Birds transferred production to Banbury in 1963, but was recently converted into 110 studios and offices for creative and media entrepreneurs.
Links:
Digbeth Digbeth, Deritend and Bordesley High Streets Conservation Area
The Digbeth Institute on Digbeth High Street was built in red-brick with grey terracotta dressings in 1907. Designed by Arthur Harrison, it was an institutional church attached to the Carr Lane Congregational Church. As such, it hosted secular activities such as functions and shows intended to encourage church attendance.
The main facade features allegorical statues by John Evans; its centrepiece is a double lantern whose diminutive dome and spire are flanked by two similar end lanterns. The building is now a live music venue.
Links: Digbeth Digbeth, Deritend and Bordesley High Streets Conservation Area
The former Eagle Insurance Office (circa 1900) is on Colmore Row in the Business Quarter. It was designed in the arts and crafts style by William Lethaby who believed that architecture was a philosophical science affecting spiritual well-being and not a mere aesthetic discipline that could be served by exaggerated revivals of previous architectural styles.
The Eagle Insurance Building does however retain some classical elements such as the pilasters between the windows and the alternating segmental and triangular pediments above the Romanesque frieze on the third storey. However, the usual central portico has been replaced by a vast window flanked by twin doorways whilst the attic storey features an innovative chequered facade and eagle sculpture.
Links: Business Quarter Colmore Row Conservation Area
Elkington Silver Electroplating Factory
This red-brick building (circa 1838) on Newhall Street is all that remains of Elkington's Silver Electroplating Works. The building, which backs onto the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal, closed as a factory in 1947 and then housed the Science Museum until 1997.
It will be regenerated as a mixed-use development called Newhall Square.Two blue plaques affixed to the exterior commemorate George Elkington and Alexander Parkes.
George Elkington built a steam-powered electric generator with 64 magnets and a rotating iron armature on this site. He mass-produced silver-plated jewellery by placing metal trinkets in an electrically charged silver and potassium cyanide solution.
Alexander Parkes, who was Elkington's foreman, invented the world's first thermo-plastics at the Silver Electroplating Works in 1856.
Links: Jewellery Quarter Jewellery Quarter Conservation Area
The Floodgate Board School (circa 1890) is off Floodgate Street on the Digbeth campus of South Birmingham College. It was built in red-brick and terracotta to a typically Gothic design by Chamberlain and Martin.
The school features tall gables, clustered chimneys, a tower, spire and belfry; the interior once contained a series of open halls where older pupils taught small groups under the supervision of a professional teacher.
The halls, now divided into classrooms, were illuminated by huge windows that could not be opened because of industrial pollution and so were ventilated by air sucked through the tower which was then heated in the basement and emitted through sill vents.
Links: Digbeth Digbeth, Deritend and Bordesley High Streets Conservation Area
The Gun Barrel Proof House is on Banbury Street in Eastside; it was established by Act of Parliament in 1813 in order to test and certify firearms and in particular to ensure that gun barrels would not explode when fired.
The original core building has survived as part of a far larger complex. Designed by John Horton, it is a 2-storey brick structure with a central porch, segmental pediment and ause-de-panier arch. Trophies by William Hollins stand in a broad shallow niche above the door.
The Proof House still tests and certifies firearms and ammunition. It contains a museum which may be visited by appointment only.
Links: Eastside Warwick Bar Conservation Area
The Hall of Memory is on Centenary Square in the Convention Quarter; it commemorates the 12,320 men from Birmingham who died in the First World War and other servicemen who have lost their lives in subsequent conflicts.
The hall was designed by S.N.Cooke and W.N. Twist in the Edwardian baroque style; it was built in Portland stone on an octagonal base with Doric portico, side chapels, projecting cornice and dome. Four allegorical statues of the army, navy, air force and women's service stand outside the hall; the interior contains three bas-reliefs by William Bloye entitled Call, Frontline and Return.
The hall cost £60,000 which was raised by public subscription; it was opened by Prince Arthur of Connaught on 4 July 1925; 30,000 attended the ceremony.
Links: Convention Quarter Hall of Memory Official Website
The former Makepeace Clothing Mart (1913) is located on Digbeth High Street; it was designed for George Makepeace by the architect James Patchett and built on a steel frame in red brick with orange terracotta dressings.
The facade features distinctive orange pilasters and a green-glazed terracotta parapet. The cast-iron first-floor balcony has been removed but two iron lantern holders have survived.
Links: Digbeth Digbeth, Deritend and Bordesley High Streets Conservation Area
Methodist Central Hall on Corporation Street was built in red-brick and terracotta in 1903-04 to a design by E & JA Harper. It is a 12-bay structure with three storeys, a slender tower, a rooftop balustrade and polygonal turrets.
The Main Hall, which is recognisable from the exterior by a series of double-storey round-arched windows, seats around two thousand and is surrounded by an ornate balcony on three sides and an Edwardian pipe organ on the fourth.
The reception hall contains a spectacular two-winged staircase whilst the porch features excellent figure carvings. The ground floor bays on Corporation Street are leased as shops, some of which possess their original Edwardian fronts.
Links: Gun Quarter Steelhouse Lane Conservation Area
The New Street Signal Box in Southside is off Navigation Street on the railway track at the western approach to New Street Station. Designed by Bicknell & Hamilton, it was built in corrugated concrete in 1964.
The box has been criticised as one of Birmingham's ugliest specimens of post-war architecture. However, it was recently awarded Grade II listed status as an early example of an innovative structure in the Brutalist style.
Links: Southside
The Old Crown Inn is located at the corner of High Street Deritend and Heath Mill Lane in Digbeth. It originally served travellers crossing the River Rea in order to enter Birmingham. The Rea is now culverted and hidden from view.
In the 19th century, the Old Crown was owned by a lawyer Joshua Smith who claimed that it was built in 1368 as the Guildhall of the demolished Chapel of Saint John. However, the current plaster-infill and timber-framed building most probably dates from around 1500.
The ground floor originally consisted of a hall, kitchen and parlour above vaulted cellars with a rear courtyard & well; the upper storey is jettied and features a diminutive projecting gable above the central porch.
Queen Elizabeth I is said to have slept in the upstairs Gallorye Chamber where a fleurs-de-lis has been carved on the ceiling.
Links: Digbeth Digbeth, Deritend and Bordesley High Streets Conservation Area
Old Moor Street Railway Station is next to the Bull Ring in the Retail Quarter; it was designed by W.Y. Armstrong and built in brick with terracotta dressings in 1909. The station features five curved stone gables above a single-storey entrance range that contains six circular glazed-bar windows
Old Moor Street was built as a terminus by the Great Western Railway in order to relieve pressure on Snow Hill Station. Trains could terminate at Moor Street on the east side of the city centre and so avoid the congested underground tunnel to Snow Hill Station on the west side.
Snow Hill Station closed in the 1960's but reopened in 1986 as part of a new cross-city line. Moor Street was then rebuilt on a new alignment as a through-station. However, the old terminus building was preserved as a booking hall and retail area.
Links: Retail Quarter
The former Oozells Street Board School is on Oozells Square at Brindleyplace in the Convention Quarter. It was designed by Chamberlain & Martin in their Gothic style and built in red-brick in 1874-76.
The three-storey building consists of four bays, three of which terminate in gables whilst the fourth features an apsidal turret above the main entrance. The ventilation tower was demolished in 1976, but rebuilt on a steel girder frame in 1997.
The building, which is now the Ikon Gallery, has not been used as a school since 1906 and the surrounding street pattern, including Oozells Street itself, has been replaced by Brindleyplace.
Links: Convention Quarter
The Proof House Gates on Banbury Street in Eastside are flanked by Dutch gables with segmental pediments. The main entrance is beneath a central arch crowned by a broader segmental pediment with terracotta dressings that bears a plaque dated 1813.
Links: Eastside Warwick Bar Conservation Area
The former Queens College (1843) is on Paradise Street in the Business Quarter. The college was established as the Birmingham Medical School in 1828; it relocated to this building on Paradise Street after receiving a Royal Charter in 1843.
Its medical and scientific departments transferred to Mason Science College in Edmund Street in the 1890's and its theological department moved to Edgbaston in the 1920's. The college was then rebuilt as an office block; however, its facade was preserved.
The main entrance is beneath an ogee arch whose canopied niche contains a statue of Queen Victoria. The ground floor features a segmental arcade; the piers of the central and end bays terminate in triangular gables.
Links: Business Quarter Colmore Row Conservation Area
The Rotunda is in Rotunda Square, next to the Bullring, at the junction of New Street and High Street in the Retail Quarter; it was constructed in 1961-65.
The Rotunda is 81 metres high; it is built around a central concrete core; its 25 floors are supported by core and perimeter columns.
The Rotunda was originally an office block with ground floor leisure and retail units. One of these, the Mulberry Bush pub, was bombed by the IRA in November 1974.
The Rotunda was refurbished and partially converted into residential units by the developer Urban Splash in 2004-2008. It now contains 232 luxury apartments and six penthouse suites. The cylindrical facade features floor-to-ceiling glazing.
Links: Guide Retail Quarter Guide Bullring & Markets
The Birmingham School of Art is in the Business Quarter: it occupies an entire street block: the main facade is on Margaret Street with side elevations on Cornwall Street and Edmund Street.
The building was designed in the Decorated Gothic Style by Chamberlain and Martin; it was built in red-brick and terracotta in 1881-85.
The five-bay facade on Margaret Street features three asymmetrical gables with a roundrel and Art Nouveau foliage on the left gable, trefoil lancets beneath the central mosaic gable and a three-lancet roundrel on the taller right gable.
A tiled frieze of lilies & sunflowers encircles the building; the roof features a bracketed eaves cornice and decorative ridge tiles; the interior contains carved capitals, stained-glass and mosaic floors.
Links: Business Quarter Colmore Row Conservation Area
The former School Board Office (1875) is located at 98 Edmund Street in the Business Quarter. Designed by Chamberlain & Martin in the Gothic style, it was built in red-brick with terracotta and stone dressings.
The building consists of four storeys, a basement, and three bays divided by buttresses that terminate in diminutive gables. The main entrance is through an open stone porch whose arch supports a balcony and canted bay window.
Links: Business Quarter Colmore Row Conservation Area
The Town Hall was built in 1832-34 in preparation for democratic local government at a time when Birmingham was still ruled by an unelected board of street commissioners.
It is a "peripteral temple" being rectangular in shape on a rusticated podium with an external Corinthian colonnade. It was built in brick and faced with Anglesey marble.
The architects, Joseph Hanson and Edward Welch, were inspired by the ruined temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome. However, they encountered structural problems in their attempt to recreate a ruined classical building and were bankrupted by the project which was completed by Charles Edge
.Links: Business Quarter Colmore Row Conservation Area
The Typhoo Tea Factory was built in the 1930's on a 2.5-acre site off Bordesley High Street. The site is connected to the Digbeth Branch Canal via the Typhoo Wharf and Basin.
The Typhoo Works is a linear flat-roofed building inspired by the Bauhaus School. The factory closed in 1978 and will be regenerated as a mixed-use commercial and residential development centred on a new public square.
Links: Digbeth Warwick Bar Conservation Area
The former Union Gentlemen's Club is on the corner of Newhall Street and Colmore Row in the Business Quarter. Designed by Yeoville Thomasen in the late 1860's, it was built in stone with a rusticated ground floor and open Corinthian porch.
The first floor windows are set behind a decorative balustrade and crowned by triangular pediments; there are segmental pediments above the porch and corner windows. A foliage frieze runs beneath the bracketed eaves cornice and the roof features a balustrade punctuated by decorative urns.
The interior has been rebuilt: a mansard roof being added to increase office space whilst preserving the Victorian facade.
Links: Business Quarter Colmore Row Conservation Area
The Victoria Law Courts are at the corner of Corporation Street & Newton Street in the Gun Quarter. Designed by Aston Webb and Ingress Bell, they were built in red-brick & terracotta in 1887-91. The foundation stone was laid by Queen Victoria during her Golden Jubilee Tour.
The main facade features intricate clay reliefs and sculptural figures, including an enthroned Victoria above the central porch. There is a proliferation of cross-windows and octagonal towers and a balustraded crested roof with gabled clock stage.
The interior is faced in sand-coloured terracotta. The Great Hall features a hammer-beam ceiling, crown-shaped chandeliers, stained glass, decorative putti and arcades with first-floor balconies. A tunnel-vaulted passage with richly decorated panelling leads to the courtrooms. The building currently houses Birmingham Magistrates Court.
Links: Gun Quarter Steelhouse Lane Conservation Area
266 Broad Street is a red-brick Gothic warehouse (circa 1875) by Chamberlain & Martin at the corner of Gas Street and Broad Street. It stands on a bridge above the Birmingham and Wolverhampton Canal.
The Broad Street facade features one broad gable above two rows of sash windows on the right bay and two narrow gables with roundrels and pointed-arch couplets on the centre and left bays.
The Gas Street facade possesses one large gable with cut-brick foliage alongside a smaller gable with a roundrel and couplets.
The rear facade, which overlooks the canal, features one large gable above three rows of rectangular windows and a smaller windowless gable.
Links: Convention Quarter
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