Regency Style Nᵒ.1: 35 Calthorpe Road



35 Calthorpe Road, June 2012

Architect: John Fallows
Built: 1829
For: Possibly Thomas Fiddian

Thomas Fiddian (c.1768-1849), a merchant, and later his son William (1801-1867), were the residents of the house from 1838 to the 1861 census; William was a wine and spirit merchant in partnership with his brother Thomas Bowyer Fiddian who lived nearby on Wheeley's Road. Another relative (probable nephew of Thomas senior) was the architect Frederick William Fiddian who designed a number of properties in the Edgbaston area over the 1840s and 1850s. In William West's directory of 1830 the address of Thomas Fiddian is Calthorpe Street (the original name of Calthorpe Road, changed c. 1871, the house would have probably been 20 Calthorpe Street), so it is possible that it was the Fiddian family who commissioned the house only a year earlier.**

The building is Greek Revival, built in 1829, though has had a number of extensions and alterations throughout its life. A north-east wing is visible on the 1887-1889 Ordinance Survey map, and the north-west wing was extented by Horace Farquharson in c. 1906. The north-east wing was further exrented in 1938 and a single storey brick extension was added c. 1960s.* The brick extension has recently been replaced with a two storey extension of a similar style to the rest of the villa, as well as other alterations to restore it to its original design (see below). It is currently used as offices.

Detail of the doric portico that frames the entrance with the decorative mouldings along the frieze which are often used by Fallows.

Decoration follows along the frieze, but the line is broken by the windows being out of line with the cornice, perhaps caused by a later alteration (possibly during the c.1906 alterations). The ground floor windows have incised detail in the arch.








The restoration of historic buildings is the return, as far as possible, to their original state and style, with many later details being removed, especially the more recent additions. With many listed buildings organisations such as English Heritage will be called in to help to achieve a restoration that is as close as possible to how the original building would have looked. Recently 35 Calthorpe Road has been restored in this way to offer a coherent space that valued the 'importance of the building from both its historical and architectural aspects'.* Restoration is seen as a process of history, and is part of the culture for the preservation of historic buildings. But, is the history that is being preserved the real past, or is it an imagined past?

By giving primacy to the original style in the removal of what came afterwards is a kind of historicism that values coherence over reality. The official report for restoring number 35 stated that many of the later additions (especially 20th century additions) to the original building 'all detract from the original character of the building and should be removed'.* What is valued here is a single frozen, seemingly 'authentic' moment of the past, like a photograph. The building is stabilised and the imperfections that are seen to interrupt the story are removed as restoration values a building free from the corruptions of time and one that is closer to its original design. This is an aesthetic and conceptual judgement, which is completely acceptable as a force for altering the built environment for current sensibilities, but it is not necessarily a historical one, and is not particularly different from previous inclinations for change.


NOTES
* From a report on 35 Calthorpe Road for the Calthorpe Estate by Donald Insall Associates
** If you require more information on the Fiddian's please contact Jenni (email at bottom of blog).
Also, Andy Foster, Pevsner Architectural Guides; Birmingham (London, Yale University Press, 2005).
External Links
Thomas Fiddian Junior

Architects Nᵒ.5: John Fallows (1799-1861)

Architect & builder. 1799-1861. See all posts of John Fallows.

John Fallows was born in Birmingham in 1799. He worked as a builder and surveyor in the mid 1820s, as an architect from about 1828 and was described in 1830 as 'rapidly rising in his profession , and [to have] executed several excellent villas in the parish of Edgbaston'.*** He is not a well known architect but he was one of the three finalists to be chosen for the building of the new Town Hall in December 1830 (Hansom & Welch finally winning). His work tails off through the 1830s, in the beginning of the decade he moved away from Birmingham to Northfield, and then, in 1832, declared himself bankrupt. After this he continued to live in Northfield but worked in Birmingham, though from about 1835 he works as Fallows & Hart, probably with a brother-in-law as his first wife was Maria Dinah Hart. From the late 1830s/early 1840s he built up a business as an auctioneer and surveyor with offices at 14 Temple Row. He married twice and had children from both marriages, and there is a memorial for him and both his wives in St. Laurence's church in Northfield, where Fallows himself died on 20th December 1861.
Andy Foster describes Fallows's work as combining 'handsome proportions with picturesque, sometimes eccentric, detail' and also mention his 'trademark tapering 'Graeco-Egyptian' architraves'.** This can especially be seen in his surviving work in Calthorpe Road.

Buildings by John Fallows in and around Birmingham:
c. 1828: House and offices at 99 & 100 New Street (occupied and used by Fallows) (demolished)
c. 1828. House at 36 Waterloo Street (attributed by Andy Foster) (facaded in 1976)
1828-1829: Chapel on Ablewell Street, Walsall*
1828-1835: Houses at 27 to 30 Waterloo Street
1829-1830: Houses at 31, 35 & 36 Calthorpe Road
1832-1833: Plough and Harrow Inn on Hagley Road
As Fallows and Hart
1836: House and factory of George Unite at 65 Caroline Street (attributed by Andy Foster)

John Fallows's grandson was the writer and lecturer John Arthur Fallows (1865-1935) who wrote a pamplet entitled The Housing of the Poor in 1899 which describes in detail life in Birmingham's courts of back-to-back's at that time, and who also wrote against racial discrimination.

NOTES
* 'Walsall: Protestant Nonconformity', A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 17: Offlow hundred (part) (1976), pp. 241-249. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=36199&strquery=fallows Date accessed: 18 March 2012.
** Andy Foster, Pevsner Architectural Guides: Birmingham (London: Yale University Press, 2005).
*** Other references on request.
Full references available on request.
To find out more click on the labels below.

Birmingham Bookshop Nᵒ.2: Books Printed by Thomas Aris 1742-1760

A Lyrick Poem, 1742.

1742.

The Good Shepherd, 1743 (10 pages).

A Miscellany of Mathematical Problems, 1743.

The Humours of the Fleet, c. 1745. 

A Treatise [...], 1746.

The Judgment of Whole Kingdoms and Nations, 1747.

The Polite Companion (volume 1), 1749.

The Polite Companion (volume 2), 1749.

Divine Harmony, 1752.

A Collection (music), 1753.

The Art of Pleasing at Court, 1754.

The Life of Miss Fanny Brown, 1760.

Town Hall, Guildhall and Joseph Hansom



The Town Hall in 1834

Joseph Hansom, with his partner Edward Welch, won the competition to build the Town Hall out of 67 applicants in 1831. The hall is one of the most iconic of Birmingham's buildings and its history has been traced by a number of writers. Those who have read any history of Birmingham will probably be aware of how Hansom had grossly underestimated the costs of building, and that as he had borne the entirety of the financial commitments, he was declared bankrupt before completion (and the hall had to be completed by Charles Edge). In the early 1830s though, Birmingham was teeming with political radicalism, and Joseph Hansom, influenced by Robert Owen's ideas, was part of the wider socialist movement. We do not know whether the Town Hall was built by builders in co-operatives, there were a large number of builders working on the building, but with Hansom behind the project it would have been built with the aspirations of socialism, which marks it as an important building.

Although he went bankrupt, the Town Hall was not the last of Joseph Hansom’s Birmingham commissions; in 1833 work began on the Operative Builder’s Guildhall. The Guildhall was initiated by Birmingham’s Builder’s Trades’ Union (the Operative Builder’s Union) who wanted a building for meetings, lectures and for education.* The idea was that the builders themselves would erect buildings as co-operatives without the need for the masters. Hansom, being a socialist, was a keen advocator of co-operatives. The objective of the builders trade unions was ‘to give permanency and efficiency to the efforts of the working builders to obtain secure sufficient wages and full employment for every member of their body’ and also 'to provide [...] schools for instruction in all the branches of the art of building' as well as 'a good, sound, and practical education for their children’.* There was also the desire to offer 'provision for times of illness or accident, and a comfortable retirement for the aged and infirm'.* The larger businesses and employers saw the Operative Builder’s Union as 'a direct threat to private property and capitalist enterprise', and initiated a counter-attack on those workers involved by refusing to employ them.*

The day the first stone of the Guildhall was laid there was a procession; 'bands of music, flags, banners, &c., were seen moving in all directions towards the scene of action. After parading the principal streets, amidst throngs of spectators, [...] the procession proceeded to the site of the intended building in Broad Street'.* The building was seen as part of 'the commencement of a new era in the condition of the whole of the working classes in the world'.* The excitement and optimism would be short lived though. The aim had been to raise the funds for the Guildhall from donations from the Builder’s Trades’ Unions but they suffered from organisational weaknesses and funds that were earmarked for the building of the Guildhall were used to support strikers in other towns.* In 1834 the union collapsed as did the plans for the Guildhall, which was only ever half built, but the ideas and operatives were mainly absorbed into the wider radical movements of the time.*

NOTES
** With thanks to Alex Lawrey who first let me know of this aspect of the Town Hall's construction. You can visit his site: http://www.builtheritageresearch.org/
* References available on request.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.12: Public Buildings and a New Urban Awareness

King Edwards' School

From the Georgian period there was a rise in the number of public buildings in English provincial towns, but also more architectural awareness in designing these buildings to achieve a specific image for the town. Architectural styles were moving from the vernacular to the classical; earlier buildings were often simply designed or appropriated preceding buildings.* In Birmingham pre-eighteenth century institutions, such as the grammar school and the prison, were housed in older buildings. The school building was the old Guild Hall and thought to date from at least 100 years beforehand, and the prison used the old Leather Hall, a remnant of Birmingham’s once famous market in leather.* Both of these institutions were re-housed in the early 1700s, though only the school moved to a custom built building.  It was not till later in the century that the town’s public buildings were designed to emit prestige and to be focal points within the urban landscape.

Two of Birmingham’s first public buildings were the Market Cross and the Welsh Cross which stood at the two opposing ends of the High Street by the first decade of the eighteenth century.  They provided modest market cover which consisted of a lower arcade with a room above for public meetings and, in the case of the Welsh Cross, a guard room. These buildings were small, understated and had quite general functions, and both had clocks, which was advantageous when the majority could not afford their own timepiece. King Edward’s School on New Street though (above), built only a few years later, was constructed on a much grander scale. It consisted of a central part set back from the street with two wings decorated with a cornice and surmounted by an elegant balustrade. The urns were added in 1756. The central tower, with another clock, rose in four stages topped with a cupola, decorated with Corinthian columns at the first stage and a niche at the third stage containing a statue of Edward VI.* The school needed to be larger to accommodate the pupils, but the building had been designed to be a focal point, using classical influence to promote grandeur and encourage esteem.

Blue Coat School
Workhouse
General Hospital

~Three eighteenth century public buildings.~

Over the rest of the eighteenth century there were three main public buildings erected, the Blue Coat School (1724), the workhouse (1733) and the hospital (1765-79), all of which were built for the poorer of society and constructed in a similar Palladian style. All were also extended later in the century to accommodate a continued growing need for them. Each had a central pediment with simple, austere and imposing facades which could be confused as Georgian country houses, in fact, William Hutton stated as much about the workhouse.* All of these buildings, though, were relatively un-ornamented and from the beginning of the nineteenth century the architectural style of Birmingham’s public buildings can be seen to change. William Hollins’s public offices on Moor Street (1807) were criticised for the ‘unnecessary use of classical ornament for so utilitarian a building’,* but neoclassical design was predominant in Birmingham for the next 30 or 40 years.

~Into the nineteenth century.~

From the late eighteenth century a transition can be seen as to who public buildings were built for, and this is more predominantly the middle classes. The library (1799), Public Offices (1807), News Room (1828), Society of Arts Building (1828), and Town Hall (1834) are all assertions of a middle class presence. Classical ornament became more overt, symbolising perhaps the prosperity and prestige of the town and its people. The Society of Arts building was a prominent example of the neoclassical style, with its protruding portico supported by Corinthian columns overhanging New Street's walkway. The library, which was later extended, had originally consisted of a central bowed entrance with decorative fan lights, and a single bay either side divided by Doric pilasters on the lower floor and Ionic on the upper. By far the grandest neoclassical addition to Birmingham’s landscape though was the Town Hall. The design was by Hansom and Welch, but due to them going bankrupt part way through building, completed by Charles Edge. The building had been designed after the temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome, and had a rusticated base topped with Corinthian columns, and would have towered over the surrounding buildings. It was built to house Birmingham's renowned musical concerts, plus events, public dinners and large town meetings; Charles Dicken's talked here, Mendelssohn performed, and Queen Victoria was received at the Town Hall when she visited in 1858. It was the central status symbol of culture in the town.

The construction of public buildings promoted the prestige, prosperity and aspirations of the town. Over the period covered here architectural awareness developed, as well as an appreciation of the town landscape as a whole. Most of the public buildings constructed in the early part of the nineteenth century were designed by Birmingham based architects but national competitions were held for the designs, some receiving 50 or more entries, as it was important to get the best design to make the right statement about the town. Buildings also became more specialised and different kinds of buildings were needed for varying functions required in the growing town. Many of these functions had been developed by the growing middle classes, for leisure and entertainment, for education (both of themselves and the poor), and as methods of regulating and, sometimes, ordering the growing town and its people.

MAIN PUBLIC BUILDINGS OF THE PERIOD
---------pre eighteenth century
King Edwards Free Grammar School on New Street in mid 1500s, rebuilt 1707 and in 1833-1838 (demolished 193)
Prison in the Leather Hall on New Street in 1600s (or earlier), demolished 1728, newly built at Bridgewell House near Pinfold Street in 1733, extended into Peck Lane in 1757, new building on Moor Street in 1795 (all demolished)
---------eighteenth century
Old Cross near the Bull Ring in 1702 (demolished 1784)
Welsh Cross near Dale End by 1706 (demolished 1803)
Blue Coat School on Temple Row in 1724, enlarged and refaced in 1794 (demolished 1935)
Workhouse on Lichfield Street in 1733 (Aston had a workhouse from 1700), infirmary wing added in 1766, labour wing added in 1779, moved to Winson Green in 1852 (both demolished)
Court House (or Court of Requests) on High Street used a house built in circa 1650 from 1752 (demolished)
Protestant Dissenting Charity School on Park Street in 1760 (demolished)
Hospital on Summer Lane between 1765-1779, wings added in 1790 (demolished)
Asylum for the Infant Poor on Summer Lane in 1797 (demolished)
Library on Union Street between 1798-1799 (demolished 1899)
--------nineteenth century till 1858
Public Office on Moor Street between 1805-1807 (demolished)
General Dispensary on Union Street in 1808 (demolished 1957)
Deaf and Dumb Institution on Calthorpe Street in 1814 (?)
Infant School on Ann Street in 1823 (demolished)
News Rooms on Bennett’s Hill in 1828 (demolished)
Society of Arts on New Street in 1828 (demolished)
Town Hall on Paradise Street in 1834
Market Hall on High Street from 1828-1835 (demolished 1962 after bomb damage in 1940)
Queens College on Paradise Street from 1843-1845 (re-fronted 1904)
People’s Hall of Science on Loveday Street in 1846 (demolished)
Poor Law Offices on Paradise Street in 1854 (demolished)

NOTES
* References available on request. Also see, Peter Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Town 1660-1770 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991)
Images courtesy of Birmingham Library and Archive Services.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.11: Market Cross and Welsh Cross (High Street)

Old/Market Cross 1702-1784.  Welsh Cross c.1705-1803.



Illustrations from Hutton's 'History of Birmingham', 1836

Throughout Medieval England it was common to have a religious cross elevated on a pole in the market place, it is unknown when the cross was originally erected in Birmingham's market, but the market itself had been registered since 1166. The cross building was built in 1702; it provided shelter for the market people and the room above provided a space for public meetings and the court leet.* Hutton believed that the Welsh Cross building had originally been the site of a direction post as it stood at the junction between Dale End, Bull Street and High Street. The building itself was built in the early 1700s for a Saturday market, but it was 'never heartily adopted',* though from 1768 a cheese market was held there.* The upper room was used as a military guard room securing prisoners, and punishments were dealt out below where there were a pillory, stocks and a whipping post. The pillory was similar to the stocks, with holes to support the hands and head, but was sometimes part of a more severe punishment as physical violence such as whipping or branding could be included. The stocks and the pillory were used mainly for public humiliation, and were placed in the market place so that the largest amount of people could see them. At the beginning of the nineteenth century these kinds of punishments became less acceptable and the pillory was abolished in 1837. Although the Welsh Cross was removed for street widening in 1803 the last use of the pillory was in 1813.*


Pillory in Charing Cross, London, c. 1808.

NOTES
Please note that the image of the pillory being used is in London, so not specific to Birmingham.
* References on request.

Architects Nᵒ.4: Charles Edge (1800-1867)

Example of Charles Edge's architectural drawings. From a proposed
building on New Street, 1842.

Architect. 1800-1867.  
Charles Edge was a talented Birmingham born and based architect. Furmansky et al, in exploring Charles Edge’s children and grandchildren, state that the Edge family ‘traced its respectable lineage to 1340’ and that their ‘stationary bore the family’s crest’;*** this contradicts Peter Baird’s theory that Charles was poorly educated, which he derived from some spelling mistakes on the architectural drawing produced by Charles.** Charles’s brother was Thomas Edge Esq. whose son Francis, before becoming a clergyman, was an architect, perhaps training and working with his uncle.* Charles himself was possibly trained by the self taught Thomas Rickman** and began his career in about 1827 producing classical Greek Revival buildings. He was responsible for a number of buildings in the Bennett’s Hill and Waterloo Street development, living himself at number 18 Bennett’s Hill till 1840, but after that using the building only as his office. He was highly adaptable though and developed his style over the decades that he worked.

Following is a list of Charles Edge's Birmingham commissions;
c. 1827: Wesleyan Chapel on Constitution Hill (demolished)
1827: 1-6 Bennetts Hill (facaded)
c. 1828: 102 Colmore Row (attributed by D. Hickman)
1828-1835: The Market Hall on High Street (fountain added in 1851) (below, bombed then demolished)
1829-1838: Enlarged the Public Office on Moor Street (demolished)
1832: Office for New Hall Coal Co. on Bennetts Hill (demolished)
1833: Bank of Birmingham on Bennetts Hill (demolished)
1834-1862: Key Hill Cemetery and Chapel on Key Hill (chapel demolished)
1835: Rebuilt St. Peter's Church on Dale End (demolished)
1835-1851: Completed and extended the Town Hall on Paradise Street
1837: 15 Chad Road, Edgbaston
1838: Albert Street (road) (not completed)
1838: Holy Trinity Church in Smethwick (mainly demolished)
1838: Regent Works on Regent Street (attributed by A. Foster)
1838: Enlarged St. George's Church on Westbourne Road, Edgbaston (enlarged further in 1856)
1839: Victoria Works on Graham Street (attributed by A. Foster)
1841: Altered the New Royal Hotel to accomodate the main Post Office on New Street (demolished)
1843: Joseph Gillot premises on the corner of New Street and Bennetts Hill (bombed then demolished)
1846: Norwich Union fire engine house at 17 Temple Street
1850: Protico to Apsley House at 39 Wellington Road, Edgbaston (probably also the main house)
1852: Lily House at Birmingham Botanical Gardens on Westbourne Road, Edgbaston
1853: Infant School and the mistress' house for the parish school on Ampton Road, Edgbaston
1860: Proof Hole at the Proof House on Banbury Street
1860-1861: Shop and works for Mr. Powell, gunmaker, at 35-37 Carrs Lane
Some other work was completed outside Birmingham, but this article is concerned with Birmingham architecture. The list above owes a great deal to the book 'Birmingham's Victorian and Edwardian Architects'.**

"Birmingham Market Hall. Now erecting from the Design of Mr. Charles
Edge, Architect." Built between High Street an Worcester Street 1831-5.

NOTES
* References available on request.
** Peter Baird, 'Charles Edge', in Birmingham's Victorian and Edwardian Architects, ed. by Phillada Ballard (Oblong, 2009).
*** Dyana Z Furmansky, Dyan Zaslowsky and Bill McKibben, Rosalie Edge, Hawk of Mercy: The Activist Who Saved Nature From the Conservationists (University of Georgia Press, 2009).
You can visit the Friends of Key Hill Cemetery forum here.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.10: The Town's First Department Store - Warwick House (New Street)



Illustration taken from larger of whole street.
Jenni Dixon, 2011

Warwick House was Birmingham's first department store and the first palatial building in the town; it was completed in 1839, the design being by Suffolk born architect, William Thomas.* It shop was built in the early Victorian era and would have been a dramatic insertion into Georgian and Regency New Street, where it was erected and towered above the three mid-Georgian terraces that stood between it and the Pantechnetheca. It had been commissioned by draper William Holliday and his then partner Mr. Merrett and sold all manner of fabrics, ribbons, ready made and tailored clothing and also carpets.*

The original site had been that of two old cottages, described some years later from the memories of Eliezer Edwards; 'one abutted upon the footway, and the other stood some thirty feet back, a pretty garden being in the front. The latter had been occupied by Mr. James Busby, who carried on the business of a wire-worker at the rear. The ground floor frontages of both had been taken out. A roof had been placed over the garden, two hideous small-framed bay windows fronted New Street, and a third faced what is now “Warwick House Passage.” The whole place had a curious “pig-with-one-ear” kind of aspect, the portion which had been the garden having no upper floors, while the other was three storeys high. The premises had been “converted” by a now long-forgotten association, called the “Drapery Company”, and as this had not been successful, Mr. Holliday and [...] Mr. Merrett had become its successors'.*

Warwick House, when built, was numbered 28 to 30 New Street, it was extended by double sometime in the early to mid 1850s in the same style as the original building, removing two of the small Georgian terraces at numbers 26 and 27 (and perhaps the third at number 25). It was a massive establishment, the 1851 census includes four pages of live-in workers and the display windows were immense for the period; imagine going to the cinema for the first time when you had only ever seen a small box television. The design was still classically influenced with the composite columns but William Thomas topped the building with an incredibly ornate attic floor topped with pinnacles.

Illustration by Jenni Dixon, copyright 2011.
*References available on request.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.9: Repository for the Arts - The Pantechnetheca (New Street)

Trade card for the Pantechnetheca, probably 1824.

The Pantechnetheca was one of the most unusual and original Regency buildings in Birmingham and was opened and run by Charles Jones, the building work beginning in 1823, and the architect being Thomas Stedman Whitwell.* The premises contained three showrooms displaying and selling a selection of manufactures and art, the articles being the best of Birmingham’s wares. Before the Pantechnetheca was built the site was occupied by a public house called the Old Crown or the Crown Tavern which you entered at the side through a large gateway which also led to the cherry orchard behind.

At the upper part of the facade Jones had the word PANTECHNETHECA written in Greek letters (see image above). When the shop first opened there was great discussion about the meaning of the word he had chosen; there was much ‘excitement [...] throughout Birmingham, and [a] large concourse of people assembled daily [...] in front of the building and in Union Passage, endeavouring to spell the word, and, after having done so, very few could pronounce it'.* It also excited a great number of local scholars to debate its meaning, but even Jones’s son did not seem to know why his father had chosen this particular word, or was unwilling to tell. The building design itself was part of the Greek Revival, and the Greek derivation of the word was possibly associated with that fashion.*

Even though Greek Revival was fashionable and other buildings in the New Street area also adopted the style, at the time of the Pantechnetheca’s erection the building did stand out from the others around it as being particularly ornate. The ground floor was decorated with a 'Grecian Doric colonnade, supporting [another] of the Ionic order', all this was 'surmounted by a handsome balustrade with projecting pedestals' and sitting on these were sculpted figures and urns.* The sculptures were of four muses used to illustrate the fine arts. There was much debate at the time as to whether the manufactures should be seen as arts, one detractor of the idea asserted critically of Birmingham in 1825 that ‘the arts are cultivated as ministering to the perfection of the manufactures; but the time has not yet arrived when they shall be encouraged for their own sakes, [i]nfected by the trading principle, our talented youth rush prematurely into the character of professional and profiting artists; "dealers and chapmen," in the intellectual line’. In 1829 the Monthly Magazine stated that ‘[a] "Brummagem article," has now become a thing admirable as a work of art', this had previously been a derogitory term, but these two opinions were part of wider dispute. The imagery that Jones used in the building, along with calling it the ‘depository for the arts’ as he did was all part of asserting Birmingham wares as belonging within the brackets of the arts.

The Pantechnetheca supplied all manner of valuable manufactured articles with a concentration of goods from the local area, these included the 'best Soho and Sheffield Plated Articles, with silver edges, fine Jewellery, Bronzery and Ormolu, in Lamps, Candlesticks, &c., Table and Fancy Cutlery, Papier Mache and Japan Trays and Waiters, fine Fowling Pieces, beautiful and rare specimens of Oriental China, elegant Cabinet and Tortoiseshell Work, in Dressing Cases, Writing Desks, Work Boxes, &c. and a great variety of other articles'.* Later the Pantechnetheca also acted as an art gallery as Jones also sold 'a succession of paintings by the most able ancient and modern masters'. This was a wide variety of wares when most traders only sold what they made, and Jones's shop would have been a kind of showcase within Birmingham of the best of the Midlands produce.
There was much thought placed, not just in the design of the building, but into the interior and auxiliary ornamentation. Richard Hicks Bridgens designed highly decorative candelabra which can be seen in the illustration at the top of this post adorning the opening to Union Passage. Jones also put thought into the interior including the lighting which is particularly mentioned, and depicts his conscious attempt to create an ambient shopping environment. You can see from the image of the interior (below) that it was light and airy with open spaces and much ornamentation, all to assert elegance and taste.


Inside the Pantechnetheca, New Street

The site Jones chose was for the shop was ideally situated, with 'spacious frontages to New-street, and on both sides of Union Passage'. The premises was divided into three equally sized showrooms (divided between two floors), each specialising in different aspects of the Jones’s products. You would approach the upstairs showrooms via 'a spacious and gracefully-turned staircase', which was fitted 'in a style of classical elegance, richness of decoration and tasteful attention to commodiousness'.* Many visitors to Birmingham would pay a visit to Jones's establishment which was part of a number of businesses that formed a tour of Birmingham’s 'curiosities'; the new and innovative wares.*

The original Pantechnetheca in a advert for Hyam.

It was an opulent project, and in the late 1830s Charles Jones went bankrupt and the property sold off in February 1839,* though it was already being used by another occupants; Samuel Hyam (a tailor), Joseph Allen Taylor (a hatter) and Messrs. Corah & Sons, who between them paid annual rent of £406 on this 'valuable property'.* According to Eliezer Edwards, Samuel Hyam had occupied the building since about 1837, and Hyam eventually took over the whole building. It is perhaps he who removed the statues from the exterior (left), as their artistic symbolism would not fit with his tailoring trade (or perhaps they were precariously balanced). Hyam had first opened his business in 1835 opposite the Pantechnetheca (number 116 at the time) and he became a very successful businessman taking down the original Pantechnetheca in August 1857 to build a much larger parade of shops, some of which he could rent out, though he retained Jones's name of the Pantechnetheca.

NOTES
*References on request.
Other spellings. Panteknetheca, Pantenetheca, Pantenetheka, Pantechnatheca.
Images courtesy of Birmingham Library and Archive Services.

References available on request
To find out more click the labels below.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.8: Birmingham's 'Old Curiosity Shop' (Ann Street & Congreve Street)

Circa 1740s-1874

~Reproduction from the 1870s of John Allin’s business (run from c. 1785-1813), made by his great-grandson Clement Selkirk Jones, on the corner of Ann Street (to the right) and Congreve Street (left). The building on the far right next to the castellated shop is the White Lion public house. The birds in the first floor window were taxidermies and part of a cabinet of curiosities.~

In the middle of Victoria Square, just behind where the statue of Queen Victoria stands, stood an eccentric little shop. They say an Englishman’s home is his castle, and the house that stood here, on the corner of Ann Street and Congreve Street, with its castellated top and tower, topped with the union jack, is definitely John Allin’s castle. It is likely that Allin’s father (or grandfather) built the property, as the family owned it and the three buildings next to it up Ann Street, but it was probably initially only a dwelling house. Allin usually flew the union jack from the roof of his shop and the premises became known simply as ‘The Flag’, and it seems that John was quite a patriot as he also named one of his daughters Caroline Britannia. Allin was a tailor, appearing first in trade directories in 1785 as a habit maker, but he imaginatively developed the business by diversifying his products along with creatively promoting the business.

In 1803 he produced a booklet advertising his shop in a series of poems. These show that as well as new and second hand clothes, hats, linen and hosiery he also sold toys for children, puzzling cards, amusing cards and spelling books, art materials, sheet music and instruments, stationary and educational material, maps and travel charts and medicines including an amazing ‘cure all’ balm. He might also play his clarinet whilst you were perusing in his shop. And this was not all; he would soak your feet to clear them of corns, and pull your rotten teeth! The Latin phrase that is written on the shop in the advert (above) is ‘Multum in Parvo’ which means ‘much in little’, or ‘much in a small place’, which could not be truer. You can just imagine browsing through the shop, which would be jam-packed with all number of surprising objects (click here to view some possible items); and then of course you could go upstairs for a shilling and look at the Cabinet of Curiosities.

The Cabinet consisted of all sorts of items that would have amazed those in the late 18th century as there was a definite culture of curiosity. Travel was prohibitively expensive and much of the world had yet to even be explored, so collections filled with natural history objects and items from around the globe were particularly popular. In Allin’s cabinet there were taxidermied animals; ‘birds of all kinds and beasts of rare creation’ and in the image above there are two birds on the window ledge of the first floor window. Also on display were ‘shells, medals [and] foreign coins from every nation’, and Allin had his own coin struck advertising his shop and his miniature panorama. The scenes in his panorama changed on alternate days, unlike the full scale panorama nearby on New Street, which changed, usually, monthly. He also boasts of a 'crooked telescope that views straight', a mirror that distorts the image and a model of the solar system. Visitors could also get their portraits sketched by a young employee.

~A close-up of the advert John Allin produced to promote his business showing Allin's window display. You can see the images of the fashionable dress of the time, clothes hung on pegs outside, and what could be mannequins inside the window. Examples of his clothes can also be seen hung on pegs outside.~

In the late 1800s Allin extended his business to larger premises in High Street and left the Ann Street shop in charge of his son William. When John died in 1813 William moved permanently to High Street, which took with it the name ‘The Flag’, but because the family owned the property in Ann Street they rented it out. The next known usage was as a chemist’s, run by Samuel Wilson Suffield.
Further information.
References available on request.
To find out more click on the labels below.
Any questions? Please use the comments section below.

Ephemera: Children's Word Sheet

Children's picture and noun sheet from 1824 entitled
FORTY EIGHT NOUNS with as many PICTURES for CHILDREN

An example of Regency printed material for teaching children nouns using pictures. This item was not made in Birmingham, but similar items have been described for sale in shops at the time such as John Allin's shop on Ann Street. This kind of material would have been used by middling families to teach and entertain children, and may have been used by the infant schools (such as Birmingham's first infant school on Ann Street) to help educate the children there. I have included a selection of the panels below, choosing those that particularly depict life at the time.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.7: Bennett's Hill House and Gardens (Bennetts Hill and Ann Street (Colmore Row))

Top of Newhall Street, looking towards St. Philip's and Bennett's Hill House.
Probably by Samuel Lines Senior.

The sketch above is recorded in the archive as being made in 1828, though it may possibly be earlier that decade as the house on the far right was most likely taken down when Bennett's Hill was cut in the early 1820s. The three storey house just to the left is Bennett's Hill House, and the land that the road 'Bennett's Hill' was built on (as well as Waterloo Street) was attached to this house. The house was built in 1698 by the wealthy iron merchant, John Pemberton, with a lease for the land of 120 years, but it was his son, Thomas, that added the fashionable gardens to the house in the early 1730s. He initially added a walled garden and then planted long walks lined with trees (see map). A visitor to the house in 1755 described the gardens:
‘[They] consist of two parts, a handsome flower-garden about half an acre, square and walled in; neatly laid out, and as neatly kept. On the left hand stands a convenient summer-house, opposite to which is a gate opening to a long grass-walk, having a row of fan elms on each side, with borders of various kinds of plants and flowering shrubs; this walk parts the fruit and kitchen garden; at the end is another walk on the left hand, with rows of tall fir-trees, etc. The house stands on the highest ground of the town, over which the garden commands a good view of the country on that side for some miles.’*



Part of T. Underwood's copy of the 1731 south-west prospect of Birmingham
Bennett's Hill House is under the star, and the hill infront is Bennett's Hill

During this period the fashion for public walks and promenards expanded. Walks were sociable environments, a place for 'refined' people to meet similar friends and acquaintances, and a place to meet prospective spouses. St. Philip's church, which can be seen to the right of Bennett's Hill House in the image above, had a public walk attached to its grounds throughout the middle of the eighteenth century. The gardens and walks at Bennett's Hill House although private, show the 'walk' as a popular leisure pursuit of the wealthier classes of the time, and Pemberton's personal gardens asserted his personal wealth and pre-eminence within the town. They would have been enjoyed by the Pemberton's and their wealthy friends and acquaintances.

About 15 years after the 1731 prospect was drawn, Thomas Pemberton must have felt that the rural ambience of his gardens was under threat by the growing town, as he added terms to the family's 120 year lease that the land could not be built on the the term of the lease. This meant that as the town grew up all around, Bennett's Hill became marooned from the rest of the countryside, and a green enclave in the bustle of Birmingham. Ann street which passed it leading to St. Philip's became known as Mount Pleasant, probably because it was such a pleasant walk from St. Philip's down to the newly developed middle-class areas of the town.  From 1794 to 1817 a hay market was held on the hill, and in 1805 a site at the bottom corner was negotiated for the building of Christ Church, a church with free pews for the poor. In 1818 the 120 year lease expired and the land could then be built on, and two new streets, Bennett's Hill and Waterloo Street were laid out across what had been the Pemberton gardens. The house itself remained until 1849.



Bennett's Hill House, shortly before demolition.

 NOTES
* References on request
Images courtesy of Birmingham Library and Archive Services

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.6: A Blank Canvas (Bennett's Hill & Waterloo Street)

~1751 map showing (in the grey central area) the Pemberton family home, Bennett's Hill House and the attached garden. Swinford Street became the top end of New Street and Bewdley Street became Ann Street and is now called Colmore Row.~

The previous landscapes of a town influence the proceeding ones and this can be seen in Birmingham. The parts of the town that are the oldest generally have fewer surviving old buildings; they were often the first areas to be redeveloped when the town altered its image. These are areas such as the Bull Ring, Spiceal Street, Moor Street, Dale End, High Street and the bottom end of New Street (the top end of New Street by Victoria Square is relatively new). Also, being the primary shopping streets, these are the places that the town planners would decide place new and innovative buildings. The growing town spread out from these streets; the further the distance from them, the newer the street and the more chance of finding older buildings. If we were to go north-west for example, from the top end of New Street up the roads leading from it to St. Philip’s (such as Temple Street) and to the buildings around the church then to Colmore Row and the roads leading off that we would find many buildings that are generally mid to late Victorian. These replaced buildings that were initially built around the 1740s and 1750s. Further out still is the area around St. Paul’s where a large number of the original buildings from the 1780s still survive, probably, in part, because that part of the town was divided from the central district by the inner ring road.

Bennett’s Hill and Waterloo Street are exceptions in this, as their primary architecture dates from the 1820s and 1830s. There is very little architecture of this period that survives in the central areas apart from in these two streets, and the fact that there is a focus of this period here is peculiar. These two streets are right in the middle of the area that was being built up in the mid 1700s, but the land that they cover was once the large garden of a grand house; Bennett's Hill House. The house had been built in 1698 by John Pemberton outside the town on the top of Bennett’s Hill, which was at that time, just a hill. The lease for the land of the house and garden was for 120 years, and in 1748 Thomas Pemberton (John’s son) added a clause that the land could not be built upon for the term of the lease to protect the elegant gardens and tree lined walks that he had created (see map above).

Little snippets of the land were cut away over the next 70 years, the corner was negotiated for the building of a free church in 1805, and houses popped up along the edges adjoining New Street and Ann Street, but the vast bulk of the land was not able to be built on till 1818. William Hutton stated that prospective builders were just waiting for ‘a word from the owner to speak the houses into being’.* It took a few years for the two new roads to be cut across the land, but after that houses, offices, banks and other buildings quickly lined them; it was a blank canvas for the architects of the age to fill. Several architectural additions were from Charles Edge, John Fallows and Rickman & Hutchinson. At the same time many of the older buildings along the sides of New Street and Ann Street that joined the land were replaced, some of these survive on Ann Street (now Colmore Row), but none on New Street.

It was the relative newness of Bennett’s Hill and Waterloo Street that meant that the Victorians replaced so few of the buildings when they revamped this whole area from the about the 1860s onwards, the newer buildings are mainly of the twentieth century. Many of the buildings at the bottom of Bennett’s Hill were taken out by bombs, and there has been a great alteration to the St. Philip’s end of Waterloo Street, but there are still a number of the original (and they are original) buildings intact. And all because Thomas Pemberton liked to walk in his garden.

*References on request
Image courtesy of Birmingham Library and Archive Services.

1750 Map of Birmingham

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE A LARGER IMAGE OF THE MAP

The coloured version by Alicja Borowska is sold by Paul Leslie Line who runs Map Seeker, and has also written a book which you can buy from Amazon here.
The text on the left side of the map (top the bottom) is as follows.

'A PLAN OF
BIRMINGHAM
Surveyed in MDCCL [1750]
BY
SAMUEL BRADFORD
and Engraved by
Thomas Jefferys GEOGRAPHER
to His Royal Highness the
Prince of Wales'

'Birmingham is a Market Town situated in the North West part of the County of WARWICK [...] distant from London 88 computed & 116 measured Miles, the present number of Houses are 4107 & Inhabitants 23688.----------'
'This Town has been suppos'd to derive its name from one Birming whose dwelling-house formerly stood here. Ye termination Ham in ye Saxon Langueage signifies home or dwelling place. In ye reign of Edward the Confessor it was the Freehold of one Vluvine & in that of William the Conueror was in possession of William Fitz Ausculf who then resided at Dudley Castle. Henry II by a Grant allow'd them to hold a Market every Thursday in y' Year. In ye 35th of Henry III a Charter was given for two Fairs to be kept annually; one to begin on ye Eve of Holy Thursday, & the other on the Eve of St. John the Baptist.-----------'
'K. Edward VI in the 5th Year of his reign erected a Free Grammar School for Boys which is little inferior to any School in England as to its Revenues. St. Philip's Church was erected in the Reign of King George I who gave 600L toward the finishing of it.----------'
'St. Bartholomew's Chappel was lately built and consecrated in the Year 1750. This Town tho' very large and populous has only two Churches and two Chappels, Viz. St. Martin's & St. Philip's Churches, St. Bartholomew's Chappel which belongs to St. Martin's Parish, and St. John's Chappel in Deritend belonging to the Parish of Aston. [...] there are several Meeting Houses for Dissenters of almost all denominations. A Charity School for Boys & Girls & a large handsome [sic] Workhouse. This Place has been for a long series of Years increasing in its buildings & is superior to most Towns in ye Kingdom for its elegance and regularity, as well as Number & wealth of teh Inhabitants, its prosperity is owing greatly to ye Industry of ye People who have for many Years carried on an extensive Trade in Iron and other Wares especially in the Toy Business which has gain'd the Place a name & great esteem all over Europe.----------'

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE A LARGER IMAGE OF THE MAP

The table on the left-centre of the map is an 'An Alphabetical List of the Streets, Lanes &c. with the Number of Houses and Inhabitants in each'. It lists all of the streets that you can see on the map, how many houses were on each street (listed below as #h) and the number of inhabitants in the whole street. It has been suggested that Bradford did simple calculations to estimate the number of inhabitants in each street, though the average  number of inhabitants (in square brackets[ ], calculated by myself) varies to such a degree that would suggest a more thorough calculation. The average population of the streets ranges between 3 (in a single house on Butts Lane) and 8.88 (for Cannon Street & Needless Alley), but because we do not know how Bradford collected his data, the information is less useful. For example, the Square has a very high average number of inhabitants at 8.08, yet it is known that this was an area resided in by the very wealthy, so the high average does not represent poverty; though it may represent a large number of in-living servants, but without more data this can only be presumed. The list follows though, for general interest, but please remember that the average inhabitants data is my own addition.

STREET: #houses  then   number of inhabitants in street [average inhabitants per house]
ASTON STREET & UPPER GOSTY GREEN: 54h 294 [5.44]
BELL STREET: 39h 179 [4.59]
BEWDLEY STREET: 14h 53 [3.79]
BORDESLEY: 83h 405 [4.88]
BUCKLE ROW: 5h 19 [3.8]
BULL STREET: 140h 819 [5.85]
BULL LANE: 14h 80 [5.7]
BUTTON ALLEY: 4h 18 [4.5]
BUTTS LANE: 1h 3 [3]
CANNON STREET & NEEDLESS ALLEY: 64h 568 [8.88]
CARRS LANE: 36h 207 [5.75]
CASTLE STREET: 25h 162 [6.48]
CHAPPEL ROW: 7h 33 [4.71]
CHAPPEL STREET: 43h 205 [4.77]
CHARLES STREET: 8h 31 [3.88]
CHERRY STREET & CROOKED LANE: 28h 190 [6.79]
CHURCH STREET: 2h 9 [4.5]
COLESHILL STREET: 37h 199 [5.38]
COLEMORE [COLMORE] ROW: 36h 268 [7.44]
COLEMORE [COLMORE] STREET: 58h 359 [6.19]
COOPERS MILL LANE: 7h 25 [3.57]
CORBETTS ALLEY: 4h 19 [4.75]
CORN CHEAPING: 29h 162 [5.59]
CROSS STREET: 1h 4 [4]
DALE END: 181h 932 [5.15]
DERETEND: 198h 1096 [5.34]
DIGBETH: 303h 1646 [5.43]
DOCK ALLEY: 13h 51 [3.92]
DUDDESTON STREET: ----
DUDLEY STREET: 104h 602 [5.79]
EDGBASTON STREET: 151h 879 [5.82]
FARMER STREET: 7h 27 [3.86]
FREEMAN STREET: 16h 137 [8.56]
FROGGARY: 25h 147 [5.88]
ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S STREET: ----
HANDSES SQUARE: 26h 140 [5.38]
HARLOW STREET: ----
HIGH TOWN: 247h 1565 [6.34]
HILL STREET: 3h 16 [5.33]
HINKLEYS: 37h 275 [7.43]
JENNING STREET: 1h 5 [5]
JOHN STREET: 59h 348 [5.9]
KING STREET: 36h 217 [6.03]
LEEK STREET: ----
LEASE LANE: 23h 148 [6.43]
LITCHFIELD STREET: 104h 841 [8.09]
LIVERY STREET: ----
LOWER MINORIES: 11h 58 [5.27]
LOWER PRIORY: 17h 90 [5.29]
ST. MARTIN'S LANE: 11h 49 [4.45]
MASS HOUSE LANE: 16h 77 [4.81]
MILL LANE: 16h 114 [7.13]
MOOR STREET: 195h 1076 [5.52]
MOAT LANE: 43h 252 [5.86]
NEW STREET: 109h 649 [5.95]
NEW MEETING STREET: 21h 149 [7.1]
NEWPORT STREET: 1h ----
NEWTON STREET: 54h 312 [5.78]
OLD MEETING STREET: 34h 231 [6.79]
PARK STREET: 156h 944 [6.05]
PECK LANE: 35h 187 [5.34]
PHILIP STREET: 38h 213 [5.61]
PINFOLD STREET: 97h 532 [5.48]
PITT STREET: ----
POTTER STREET: ----
QUEENS ALLEY: 10h 45 [4.5]
SAND STREET: 1h 4 [4]
SHUTT LANE & WELL COURT: 7h 55 [7.86]
SLAINEY [SLANEY] STREET: 60h 302 [5.03]
SMALLBROOK STREET: 101h 795 [7.87]
SNOW HILL: 84h 471 [5.61]
SPICER STREET: 41h 249 [6.07]
SQUARE: 16h 129 [8.06]
STAFFORD STREET & DITCH: 85h 408 [4.8]
STEELHOUSE LANE: 122h 645 [5.29]
SWINFORD STREET: 5h 19 [3.8]
TEMPLE ALLEY: 3h 19 [6.33]
TEMPLE ROW: 17h 129 [7.59]
TEMPLE STREET: 53h 316 [5.96]
THOMAS STREET: 52h 316 [6.08]
TONKES STREET: 13h 57 [4.38]
UPPER MINORIES: 4h 4 [1]
UPPER PRIORY: 23h 155 [6.74]
WALMER LANE: 2h 9 [4.5]
WEAMAN STREET: 78h 486 [6.23]
WESTLEY STREET: 68h 402 [5.91]
WOOD STREET: 35h 204 [5.83]
WORCESTER STREET: 66h 349 [5.29]
Houses Inhabited: 4058
Houses Uninhabited: 182
Total Inhabitants: 23,688

Architects Nᵒ.3: William Hollins (1763-1843) and Family

1763-1843. Sculptor and architect working in Birmingham all his life.

William Hollins as sculpted by his son Peter.
The bust is part of a memorial to many of the
Hollins family which is found inside St. Paul's
church in Birmingham.

Find all posts concerning William Hollins : Thomas Hollins

Many of the Hollins family were artistic with varying talents. Thomas, William's brother, was a glass painter, engraver and artist and his (Thomas's) son John moved to London and became a well known artist. Of all of William's sons, the third eldest, Peter, became the most renowned.

It has been suggested that William Hollins was Birmingham’s first architect, he was of the generation of ‘builder-architects’ of the time,* and previous names had come from outside the town, but William lived and worked in Birmingham for most of his life. According to his burial monument in St. Paul's churchyard he was born in 1763 in Shiffnal (Shropshire), his parents being John and Mary. The family moved to Birmingham when William was a boy,* and some sources state that the family originally had come from Moseley.* He trained as a stonemason and sculpted throughout his career producing a number of monuments that still survive inside several standing churches. He was very much self-taught as an architect, reading Vitruvius who he claimed as his favourite author; his obituary stating that ‘he boldly forged a key to the temple of knowledge’.*

Relatively early in his career William assisted George Saunders (a London architect) in the 1793 rebuilding of the interior of New Street’s Theatre Royal, after fire. Following this he received a number of commissions for buildings in and around Birmingham,* his work being mostly in the Greek Revival style, he was also commissioned for work on what is now Alton Towers. He was known outside the UK as Catherine the Great invited him to work in Russia, though he declined the offer.

In 1806 he put forward a proposal for a tributary monument to Lord Nelson which Birmingham was commissioning, but lost out to Sir Richard Westmacott whose work still stands in the Bull Ring. William’s design was much more complex and expensive in comparison with the simple statue that was chosen and included a post office and dispensary. A year later he designed a water conduit to surround the existing pump in the newly cleared Bull Ring which proved very unpopular. The sculpture had been personally commissioned by Richard Pratchett who lived on High Street, in order to conceal the pump that was now exposed after the clearing of the Shambles (old tightly packed buildings that had filled the wide space in the Bull Ring). William called the sculpture the 'Egyptian Conduit', the local people named it 'Pratchett’s Folly'. It was designed as a tribute to Nelson’s victories on the Nile, and may have been an elaborate show of what William could have done with the previous Nelson monument. It was in the shape of a pyramid, combining Egyptian, Grecian and English styles, and was ornamented with papyrus, Grecian honeysuckle and a lion’s head, all with associated mythological symbolism, and crowned with an urn (which was a representation of the ashes of Nelson).* It can just be seen in the image above in front of St. Martin’s, just behind the first pair of horses. It seems that the sculpture was thought of as pretentious, with too much symbolism, unlike the statue of Nelson that was straight forward and to the point.*
Hollins' commissions seems to lessen after 1807, but it is not clear whether the negative reaction to his Bull Ring sculpture is responsible for this, or whether it is simply a gap in the knowledge of his work.

William built up his business and lived at 17 Great Hampton Street. He had many children with his wife Catherine and most of his sons followed his trade, Peter becoming the most well known. William can be found at Great Hampton Street on the 1841 census with his son George Hollins (organist at St. Paul's from 1838, and at the Town Hall from 1837-1841) living next door at number 18, and another son Thomas, a 'mason', living in the court behind the house. Thomas is the only resident of court 5, and the whole area was probably used for the family’s stonemasonry. William Hollins died at his house on 12th January 1843 aged 80 and was buried at St. Paul’s, where his wife and many other members of the Hollins family were buried. A granite monument marks William's grave at the rear of the church, and there is a memorial bust inside. His son Peter, who took over the business after his father’s death, designed a memorial window in St. Paul’s dedicated to his father’s memory.

Find out about how some of William Hollins' memorial monument work that still sits in St. Philip's was recieved by contemporaries here.

Work of William Hollins
Follow the links for visit these buildings.
1796-1797: Revisions to Soho House.
1798-1799: Library in Union Street (demolished)
1805-1813: Christ Church (excluding spire and portico) on the corner of New Street and Ann Street (generally believed, demolished)
1805-1807: Public Offices and prison in Moor Street (demolished)
1806-1808: General Dispensary in Union Street (demolished, though an ornament by Hollins depicting Hygeia (goddess of health) that was above the door still survives)
1807: Sculpture surrounding the pump in the Bull Ring (demolished)
1808-1809: St. Austin’s church.....
1813: Union Mill on Grosvenor Street West (attributed as a possibility by Andy Foster)
1813: Polychrome trophy of ancient and modern arms over the door to the Gun Barrel Proof House in Banbury Street (proof house designed by John Horton of Deritend*)
1820: Restoration of St. Mary’s church, Handsworth (in the Gothic style, with his son Peter)
1831: Almshouses in Warner Street, Bordesley (demolished, decorated panels survive, which may be his son Peter’s work)
(Additional to this list is the Athenaeum, which I am researching at present as there is disparity in the sources.)
NOTES
David Owen was a timber merchant living in Selly Grove in the parish of Northfield.
*References available on request
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