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Uffculme Centre - former home of Richard Cadbury

ellbrown

ellbrown

ell brown on Flickr
I was walking down Queensbridge Road recently when I noticed a Victorian house now called the Uffculme Centre. Some signs also had the name The Old Coach House on it. It was the home of Richard Cadbury and his family from 1890 to 1906.

You can see the house from above the wall as you go past it.


Uffculme Centre - The Old Coach House - Parkview Clinic - Queensbrige Road by ell brown, on Flickr


Uffculme Centre - The Old Coach House - Parkview Clinic - Queensbrige Road - Lecture Theatre by ell brown, on Flickr


Uffculme Centre - The Old Coach House - Parkview Clinic - Queensbrige Road by ell brown, on Flickr


Uffculme Centre - The Old Coach House - Parkview Clinic - Queensbrige Road - Uffculme on the wall by ell brown, on Flickr


Uffculme Centre - The Old Coach House - Parkview Clinic - Queensbrige Road - signs by ell brown, on Flickr

I thought it might have something to do with the Chamberlains's (being so close to Highbury Park on Queensbridge Road) but it doesn't have anything to do with them.

Uffculme Centre

Uffculme is a grand Victorian House, built for Richard Cadbury in 1890 and lived in by his family until the death of his widow in 1906. The Centre takes it’s name from the Devon town of Uffculme, a village four miles from where the Cadbury name originates.
It was generously gifted to the City of Birmingham in 1916 for the furthering of psychiatric health services. It was used for this purpose until 1999.
After extensive refurbishment Uffculme is once again in use as a Conference, Function, Meeting and Training Centre
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It is a Grade II listed building.

Uffculme Hospital - British Listed Buildings

SP 08 SEBIRMINGHAMQUEENSBRIDGE ROAD
Kings Heath
997/12/10171
Uffculme (Hospital)

II


House, now hospital. 1891, by William Jenkins for Richard Cadbury. Red brick with Portland stone dressings. Slate roofs with shaped gables with finials. Brick axial and gable-end stacks with stone dressings. PLAN: Large house divided by a large full-height central hall with an oriel at the north front and a semi-circular conservatory at the other end on the south garden front; small entrance hall to the side of the hall with a porte-cochere on the north front; service wing on the west side. Jacobethan style. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attic. Moulded stone stringcourses and coping, quoins and stone mullion-transom windows. Asymmetrical north front with projecting entrance at centre with shaped gable with large stone tetrastyle porte-cochere, the columns with big pedestals and with bay window above; large canted oriel to left with balustrade and shaped gable above; short wing projecting on left with shaped gable end. The south garden front has large semi-circular cast-iron conservatory at the centre, re-clad in plate-glass and with lead domed roof with clerestory; to left and right taller 2-bay ranges, each with two small shaped gables and 2-storey stone bay windows, the left canted, the right semi-circular with balustrade on top; lower 2-storey wing set back on left with small gables to first floor windows and glazed single-storey addition in front. The east elevation has shaped gables, bays and C20 2-storey wing. INTERIOR dominated by enormous central hall, extending from the front to the back of the house; it has closely spaced piers with paired brackets supporting a gallery running around three sides of the room with a large oriel at the front; the hall has arch-braced roof trusses with tracery above the collars and with roof lights; a wide imperial staircase rises from the east side of the hall with stained glass window on the landing. Also a stained glass window from gallery to the conservatory; the conservatory now has an inserted floor and has been re-glazed, but the cast-iron structure is intact, with its slender fluted wall columns and central column supporting arches radiating from the centre to the walls. Much of the original joinery also remains including finely inlaid doors and chimneypieces. NOTE: Richard Cadbury and his younger brother George were joint heads of Cadburys, the chocolate manufacturers. George Cadbury founded the Bournville Village Trust. This Quaker family were known for their philanthropy and the hall at Uffculme is thought to have been used for entertaining and for charity events.
SOURCE: Boeke, B., Richard and Emma Cadbury.




Listing NGR: SP0709482557
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Was this a school before being used as a hospital / conference venue?

Glad you like them.

Queensbridge School is opposite this.

Thanks for the link.

The only reference to a school now is James Brindley School Willows Centre.

Further down I walked past a school.
 
Colin B said:
There's some more information on my website https://www.bhamb14.co.uk/index_files/UFFCULME.htm
Worked there many times during my time in the NHS.


Colin
Click to expand...

Lol!! Hi Colin, I was just going to post the link to your website!! I've been reading avidly about the history of Birmingham. There are some wonderful images attached to you page on Uffculme. I was fortunate enough to see quite a lot of this place a few years ago, as my wife worked there as an administrator for the mental health department of the NHS. Stunning bit of Victorian building work!!
 
I always thought the walls down Queensbridge Road were related to Highbury Park / Highbury Hall / The Chamberlain's.


The wall on Queensbridge Road outside Highbury Park by ell brown, on Flickr


The wall on Queensbridge Road outside Highbury Park by ell brown, on Flickr


Queensbridge Road - road sign by ell brown, on Flickr

Did the Cadbury's buy land off the Chamberlain's?

When I went into Highbury Park a few years ago, I thought that this was Highbury Hall.


The long snowy path from Alcester Road, deep into Highbury Park - glimpses of Highbury Hall by ell brown, on Flickr

Is it Uffculme instead?
 
The pictures of the wall opposite Queensbridge School surrounds Uffculme School, originally built by Richard Cadbury as an "Open-Air School" now a school for children with special needs, again on my site. https://www.bhamb14.co.uk/index_files/UFFCULME.htm.
On the map Uffculme is now shown as Parkview Clinic, and Uffculme School as The Uffculme Centre.
Queenbridge Road was named after the original bridge over the railway built in 1837

Colin
 
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