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Colmore Row

Now for the historic buildings between St Philip's Cathedral and Victoria Square.

Starting with 122-124 Colmore Row - now Hudson's Coffee House - It is a Grade I listed building


122-124 Colmore Row - Hudson's Coffee House by ell brown, on Flickr

Nos. 122-124 are the former Eagle Insurance offices, by W.R. Lethaby & J.L. Ball, 1900. One of the most important monuments of the Arts and Crafts Free Style in the country. The design is essentially Lethaby's; Ball was the executant. Pevsner saw it as an early example of functionalism.

Recent research has emphasized Lethaby's interest in symbolism and primitive forms, described in his Architecture, Mysticism and Myth (1892). most obvious here in the eagle, symbolizing the sun god. The structure of loa-bearing walls, concrete floors, and steel joists is expressed directly and simply in the facade. Ground floor banking hall lit by a large mullion-and-transom window carried down to the ground. The doorways have segmental hoods and three-part mouldings deriving from Buddhist temples. Glowing bronze doors with moulded discs representing the sun. Above, three floors of offices with a grid of chamfered pilasters between chunky cornices again with three-part mouldings. Over the top floor a dramatic motif of alternating round- and triangular-headed arches.

Godfrey Rubens suggests a re-working of the basic round and pointed architectural shapes Ruskin identified in The Nature of Gothic; Alexandra Wedgwood noticed the primitive, Anglo-Saxon appearance of the triangular heads. Finally a parapet of two layers with a chequer design of alternating wide and narrow brick and stone panels, with more sun discs and an eagle relief in the centre.
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From Pesvner Architectural Guides: Birmingham by Andy Foster

1900, by Lethaby and Ball for the Eagle Insurance Company. Stone with a little brick. Four storeys; 5 bays. Ground floor with a large 5-light mullioned and transomed window and symmetrical doorways left and right with simple 2-light windows and sculptured plaques above. First, second and third floors each with uniform sash windows between pilasters. The 3rd floor windows with a frieze of Romansque derivation in their heads and alternating semi-circular and triangular pediments above. Attic storey with chequer work pattern in which are set plain blank discs and, centrally, an eagle. Original metal doors and much of the interior furnishings and fittings remain.
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From 122 AND 124, COLMORE ROW B3 on Heritage Gateway

A few details


122-124 Colmore Row - Hudson's Coffee House by ell brown, on Flickr


122-124 Colmore Row - Hudson's Coffee House - glowing bronze doors by ell brown, on Flickr


122-124 Colmore Row - Hudson's Coffee House - Anno 1900 by ell brown, on Flickr
 
On the corner of Waterloo Street - looking onto Victoria Square is 130 Colmore Row

Now the Birmingham Carers Centre - it was originally occupied by the Alliance Assurance.


Birmingham Carers Centre - 130 Colmore Row - formerly the Alliance Assurance by ell brown, on Flickr

No. 130 by Goddard & Co. of Leicester, 1903, for the Alliance Assurance. Two ample storeys in Wrenaissance style. Good domed corner turret, and a canted bay to Waterloo Street. Juicy garlands.
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From Pesvner Architectural Guides: Birmingham by Andy Foster


A few details

Coat of arms of the Alliance Assurance


Birmingham Carers Centre - 130 Colmore Row - formerly the Alliance Assurance - coat of arms of the Alliance Assurance by ell brown, on Flickr

Clock tower


Birmingham Carers Centre - 130 Colmore Row - formerly the Alliance Assurance - domed corner turret with clock by ell brown, on Flickr
 
thanks for the pics ell..a couple of years back i went into the carers building its worth a look...

lyn
 
No problem.

They have really cleaned up no. 130.

Seems like a lot of Assurance / Insurance companies were located at this end of Colmore Row.
 
The Eagle Insurance/Hudsons Coffee House looks much older than 1900. Great building. Hard to believe this and B'ham Carers Centre were built only 3 years apart. Useful to see the background info too, very good quick reference. Thanks Ell.
 
Is strange that a building from 1900 got a Grade I listing, as usually they have to be much older than that (at least more than 100 years old).

They had good architects in the late Victorian into the Edwardian period.

No problem Viv.
 
ell it does not surprise me so much as they tried without success to list the central library...

lyn
 
They should have listed the old now demolished Victorian library 40 years ago (bit late now).

Only room to survive is the Shakespeare Memorial Room (it will be dismantled again and put into the new library right at the top).
 
oh dont start me off about the original library ell...its a sore point...some of the spiral staircase is now at the black country museum but minus the hand rails which they could not save..

lyn
 
Ell, they just have to be good buildings representative of their era to be listed, they do not have to be more than 100 years old. Many buildings from the 1930's have been listed - I suspect the Fort Dunlop building is, but cannot be absolutely sure.
 
Listed Building on Wikipedia

  • Grade I: buildings "of exceptional interest, sometimes considered to be internationally important".
  • Grade II*: "particularly important buildings of more than special interest".
  • Grade II: buildings that are "nationally important and of special interest".
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Government general policy is to list all buildings erected before 1700 "which survive in anything like their original condition" and most buildings of 1700–1840. More selection is exercised among buildings of the Victorian period and the 20th century. Buildings less than 30 years old are rarely listed, and buildings less than 10 years old never.
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I note that it states ' Government general policy' (Wilki is not always right, by any means), but this can be ignored, and in many cases IS ignored. I can show you an early 1800's house in Lichfield which is just being left to rot (it may have even been demolished by now, I have not seen it for some months). There is a house in Lichfield Street, Tamworth, built sometime during the 1700's and that is also seemingly being just left to fall down. Built in header bond brickwork in two colours it seems to me a fine example, but after use as a restaurant some years ago it is now vacant and certainly not up for sale. Listing depends on the owner. Anyone can list a building, but if the owner refuses to accept listing there is nothing that can be done about it - at least that used to be the case. I used to work for a firm of Building Surveyors who were in Waterloo Street, and our speciality was restoration of listed buildings. From Birmingham, our largest instruction was a house built between 1742 and 1746 which was in Shropshire. Another office restored many of the buildings in Bath, including what was the Abbey National. All this meant we were in constant touch with English Heritage, because nothing could be touched without their say so.
 
More buildings on Colmore Row - this time mainly banks

114 - 116 Colmore Row - now a Lloyds TSB


114 - 116 Colmore Row - Lloyds TSB by ell brown, on Flickr


114 - 116 Colmore Row - Lloyds TSB by ell brown, on Flickr

From Pevsner Architectural Guides: Birmingham by Andy Foster

Nos. 114-116 is a full blown Barosque weddingcake of 1912 by Paul Waterhouse, for the Atlas Assurance. A big portico is hoist aloft above much rustication, circular windows, garlands and all the panoply of commerce. An extreme contrast to Lethaby: pure scene-painting with regular office floors behind, but very effective. The facadism is expressed by Mannerist detail: the large lunette window on the ground floor directly below the portico, and the two small, heavily blocked windows immediately under the pilasters.
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It is Grade II listed as Standard House on Heritage Gateway

COLMORE ROW
1.
5104
City Centre B3
Nos 114 and 116
(Standard House)
SP 0686 NE 33/17 13.11.81
II GV
2.
Early C20, in an Edwardian Baroque style. Stone. Two storeys plus another 2 plus
attic represented by a giant portico standing on the segmental pediments of 2
windows with heavy Gibbsian surrounds, and recessed outer bays. The ground floor
with a large central arched opening with immense keystone set in banded rustication
and 2 entrances, each with a circular window with garlands and a heavy balcony above.



Listing NGR: SP0679586940
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Below is an architects drawing of Atlas Insurabce as originally completed

atlasassuranceCo114-116colmorerow1912.jpg
 
On the left is 110 Colmore Row (aka One Ten)


One Ten - 110 Colmore Row by ell brown, on Flickr

From Pevsner Architectural Guides: Birmingham by Andy Foster

No. 110 is a picturesque and original piece of 1903-4 by Henman & Cooper for the Scottish Union and National Insurance Co. Aberdeen granite, appropriately, and limestone, with inset bands of red brick. Two-storey centre with big semicircular oriel and fine original railing, clamped between three-storey towers with tapering tops, ogee caps and tall finials.
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On Heritage Gateway 110 Colmore Row is a Grade II listed building.

COLMORE ROW
1.
5104
City Centre B3
No 110
SP 0686 NE 33/15
II GV
2.
1902, by William Henman and Thomas Cooper. Granite with irregularly spaced red
jointing bands. Facade and plan are alike complicated. Three bays, the outer ones
like square turrets with battered sides, bobbin-like finials at the corners and
shallow domes sprouting flag-staffs, the centre one with a large ground floor
tripartite window and a 1st floor bow window welling out from the facade and carrying
a spiky iron railing. The turrets each have a tall ground noon frame with battered
sides and dentilled undulating pediments. In the frames, on the left, the entrance
with window above and, on the right, a tall window. Above these, each turret has a
simple sash window with detached pedimented cornice and a window set within deeply
splayed reveals and behind 'mullions'. The plan with, towards the back, an almost
completely circular shape to the left and an octagonal shape to the right.



Listing NGR: SP0680686954
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112 Colmore Row


GBR Properties - 112 Colmore Row by ell brown, on Flickr

From Pevsner Architectural Guides: Birmingham by Andy Foster

No. 112 of c. 1823 has a crisp stucco front with delicate detail: pediments with anthemion decoration, garlands, and oval discs. Stepped-up lugged architraves.
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Heritage Gateway - 112 Colmore Row is Grade II listed.

1. COLMORE ROW
5104 City Centre B3
SP 0686 NE 33/16 No 112

II
2.
Early C19, altered. Painted stucco. 3 storeys plus modern attic; 3 bays. Ground
floor with a modern shop front. 1st and 2nd floors each with 3 sash windows later
given frames, those ofthe 1st floor with pediments that project into the 2nd floor
region. An apparent altered parapet.



Listing NGR: SP0679886952
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118 - 120 Colmore Row - The Co-Operative Bank (in 2009 not sure if it is still that though)


118 - 120 Colmore Row - The Co-Operative Bank by ell brown, on Flickr

From Pevsner Architectural Guides: Birmingham by Andy Foster

Nos. 118-120 is entertaining but mongrel stucco Italianate of c. 1875.
Click to expand...

Heritage Gateway - 118 - 120 Colmore Row is a Grade II listed building.

COLMORE ROW
1.
5104
City Centre B3
Nos 118 and 120
SP 0686 NE 33/18
II GV
2.
Late C19. Stucco. Three storeys; 6 bays, the outer 2 broader and slightly advanced.
Ground floor with arched entrances with flanking coupled pilasters and, centrally,
4 segment-headed windows. First and second floors with arched window except those
of the 2nd floor outer bays. Coarse detailing and listed for group value only.



Listing NGR: SP0678286932
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Looks like the Grand Hotel (centre). The trees seem to take up much more of the road, or have these now been rmoved altogether? Viv.
 
I have just had a peep on Street View and the trees are still there but appear much smaller so they may have been uprooted and replaced with a smaller variety.
 
Always thought the 1800s description of the area around St, Philip's sounded delightful with it's avenues of lime trees on all sides. Glad some trees are still there even if they're not lime trees. Viv.
 
Actually Colmore Row and the Cathedral grounds is a very green area.
 
img603.jpg
How peaceful is that scene, and how relaxed and at ease everyone seems to be.
The Cathedral grounds in 1960.
 
This 1896 Francis Firth photo of Colmore Row is one I've seen before. But what I hadn't realised was that it shows Christ Church on the right. Not a view of Christ Church that you normally see. You can see how very plain the Church architecture was, especially compared with the more elaborate victorian Council House. And it gives a good view of the georgian houses along Waterloo Street behind Christ Church which, surprisingly, I think, are still there. Viv

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1364287569.117741.jpg
 
Hi Viv, what wonderful photo, of an iconic place, "and time", in Birmingham's history, I am puzzled though, wether it is a snowy scene, or in bright summer sunshine. !!?
paul
 
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