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Heaton House Camden Street Hockley

Astoness

TRUE BRUMMIE MODERATOR
Staff member
wondering if anyone can shed light on what this old building was used for....never noticed it before but now the buildings obscuring it have gone it is visible...took these photos yesterday..looks like the building will be retained..thanks folks may need to look at old maps..in the st view below you can just see the top floor window of the building


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An interesting building and probably significant in the sense of it being typical of jewellery trade premises (?). Can’t find a listing for it but hard to say if it has a Camden Street or Powell Street address. I’ve circled what I think is the building. Was there once another drive/access road/passageway here as it seems oddly sited in terms of access ?

Looks like it’s got new roof rafters in the second image. Must be part of a larger development plan as there seems to be work going on all around it. What developments are in progress around there ? Might tell us if it includes this property.

A nice find, especially with the exterior staircase leading from the street to the front entrance. Viv.9841D964-B88E-482A-BF1C-9E31C278FD0C.jpeg

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thanks mike that makes sense...not sure of the connection yet but there is a heaton st just down from camden st looking at your map we can now see where the entrance to heaton house was ..also found this info

18th-19th century. The history of the Birmingham Mint can be traced back as far as 1794 to when local engineer and businessman Ralph Heaton (1755-1832) established his brass foundry on the now demolished Slaney Street in Birmingham.
 
This is described in "The Birmingham Jewellery quarter " from English Heritage. It was built c 1823. It was built for william Cotterill, a B?irmingham merchant.In 1845 it was occupied Thomas cotterill (presumably the son), who lived in it till 1860 when he died. Thomas (presumably the same) is described as a coal merchant with a business at Soho wharf in 1845 directory. The grounds originally apparently included the land to the north west which were two courts by the time of the previous shown c1889 map.
 
thanks mike thats interesting info about the early days of the house but to be called heaton house i would think a member of the heaton family must have lived there at some point..will research later on unless someone else can shed some light

lyn
 
brilliant map mike...i thought the building looked georgian...mike if you come the house having a connection to the heaton family could you let me know please...

thanks

lyn
 
The newspaper archives yielded little informatiom except that in 1878 it seems to have been divided into apartments, and that there is /were Heaton houses in Solihull, Wolverhampton, Weston Super Mare , Colwyn Bay, Morcobme Boroughbridge and Lancashire, the last being the abode of the Earl of Wilton

birm post. 21.3.1878.jpg
 
cheers mike that is interesting nice to know that this building will not be demolished

lyn
 
wondering if anyone can shed light on what this old building was used for....never noticed it before but now the buildings obscuring it have gone it is visible...took these photos yesterday..looks like the building will be retained..thanks folks may need to look at old maps..in the st view below you can just see the top floor window of the building


lynView attachment 157769View attachment 157769View attachment 157769View attachment 157773View attachment 157775
Lyn, this is my childhood area. Can't work out where it is. At a guess I would say it must be around the old fire station.
If you could let me know where it is I will go and have a look tomorrow

Nick Phillips
 
nick coming up camden st from ickneild st its about half way up on the right....cant miss it

lyn
 
If you search on the Birmingham Planning site for Heaton House a list of applications comes up.
The sixth one down is the main one.
Clicking on that leads to the application and then "associated documents" - on page 2 there is a heritage report which contains a lot of info about the history of Heaton House but ... I can't see why it was called that. (The heritage report is 53 pages so I can't paste it).

Page 13 is the history part.
 
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Thanks for posting the link Janice. Below I’ve summarised some history using those documents about Heaton House residents, it’s industrial occupancy and features of the House for ease of reference, as the documentation is quite unwieldy. It’s interesting that the larger site (House and surrounding buildings) became known as Heaton House, so not just the House itself.

I am also pulling out photos from the various planning documents as it shows some old features. I shall post these later. Surprisingly some have survived. But don’t know if they’ll survive the current reincarnation. Viv.


Residents of Heaton House

William Cottrell (Cotterill), a bachelor, was a leading Birmingham merchant. Very little is known about him, but he was paying rates/levy on a property in Camden Street from 1823. He died intestate on 28 June 1828 at the age of 54. A settlement on the House was made in August 1828.

His younger brother Thomas, a wealthy bachelor, subsequently took up residence at Heaton House. He continued to live at the House until 1860. He died aged 81 in August 1860 in London, also a bachelor.

The House was bought by Joseph Wedgwood who rented it out to Richard Corbett Brinton in the late 1860s, the last private resident.

Industrial occupancy of Heaton House

1870 Heaton House was rented by Harris and Lazarus, general factors. Rates records still list it as “House, Stables, Lofts and Premises”

1871 occupied by Lazarus, Burnett & Co. At this time the premises were rated as “House, Warehouse, Stable, Lofts and Premises”

1876 the property was sub-divided; one portion was being leased by Archibald Nicholson, travelling draper, the rest briefly used by the London, Birmingham and Havana Cigar Co.

1879 the House was being used by Davies and Peak, paper merchants.

c1880s Richard Cruikshank acquired the House and it was soon absorbed into the chemical works next door. Cruikshank ceased trading in Camden Street in 1964.

c1880s the site was bought from Wedgwood by Henry Phillips

1886, part of the House was empty and the rest (House, Stables and Coach house) was occupied by Samual Jessop and Joseph Ellis.

Heaton House and grounds features

Shown on the John Piggot Smith map of 1828 (surveyed 1824), the House is in a high status area of large houses and gardens. Heaton House was set in spacious grounds.

The House was almost a square structure with a narrow wing on the south-eastern corner leading to Camden Street. A carriageway from a gated entrance on the street gave access to the north entrance to the House with a large forecourt area in front. Paths from this area gave access to the shrubbery and informal gardens to the north and west. It may have had a formal kitchen garden to the south, as well as a coach house and stables. In the late 1860s some of this area was sold off and Camden Villa was built.

By 1904 the area around Heaton House had been completely built upon.

By 1967-1976 the whole block was collectively known as Heaton House. Sometime during this period, Camden Villa was demolished. Heaton House continued to exist embedded in the later surrounding sheds and workshops.

Heaton House retained its residential internal plan until the 1940s and was used as offices and welfare accommodation.

After 1964 when Cruikshank ceased trading, the property was subdivided into commercial and industrial units.

c2005 the property has since been vacant.
 
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