Description

BIRMINGHAM

997/0/10309 HOCKLEY HILL
29-APR-04 20-21
Gem Buildings

II
Manufactory, now shops and clothing factory. 1913, with late C20 alterations. By Wood and Kendrick, architects of Birmingham, for Ginder and Ginder, diamond cutters and polishers . Painted brick and rendered exterior with concrete structural elements and detailing and with pitched roofs concealed by parapets. Functionalist pier and panel exterior enlivened by minimalist Edwardian Baroque detailing.
PLAN: Irregular H-plan, the complex linking Hockley Hill and Key Hill, and with display elevations to both frontages.
EXTERIOR: Hockley Street frontage of 4 storeys above a basement. Asymmetrical elevation, the windows occupying almost the entire frontage. The bays are arranged 1:2:1 with outer bays flanked by full height pilaster-like piers, the left-hand bay with an entrance to a stair well, the 2 centre bays with an off-centre doorway and a wide display window to the left, and a smaller window to the right. The right-hand bay has a wide ground floor window. Main doorway giving access to ground floor shops, formerly offices, with double 2 panel doors, ovolo-moulded surround, shallow- arched transom and multi-pane overlight. Doorway to left with shouldered segmental hood on brackets. Above doorways and altered window openings, wide display fascia below moulded cornice. Windows to upper floors have multi-pane metal frames, the heads and cills aligned in the 2 centre and right-hand bays. Left-hand bay with low, shallow- arched window above cornice, and windows above placed to light stair well levels. Piers flanking outer bays have dentilled caps , resembling the bases of open-bed pediments, behind which are parapet panels each bearing the inscription 'A.D.1913'
Key Hill elevation asymmetrical and more plainly detailed, with wide 4-light windows to bays 1 and 3 which retain presumed original transomed wooden frames with multi-pane transom lights. Doorway between the windows, this pattern determining the window pattern above, with wide and narrow multi-pane metal frames. Wide display fascia above doorway with sign which reads ' GEM BUILDINGS'. Right-hand bay with 3-light transomed window to ground floor, and 3 narrow lights to each upper floor.
HISTORY: The building plans show a sub-divided and heated basement floor with basement lights to the street elevations, a ground floor with front and rear entrances to multiple offices, and undivided workshop space to the 2 upper floors. The pitched roof is shown supported by a tensioned metal truss system.

A specialist manufactory of 1913, little-altered externally, and one of the earliest buildings in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter to display the influence of Functionalism in factory design.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26670649

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)