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Christopher Wray Lighting - door - moving details

New detailed shots of the old Christopher Wray building.

 

I hope someone saves this and restores it, rather than selling it and having it demolished. It is Grade II listed after all.

 

It is at 7 - 12 Bartholomew Row, which is off Chapel Street.

 

 

Houses and workshops, now brassware factory. Mid C19 with possible

late C18 and early C19 remains, and late C19 and early C20 additions.

Brick with some painted stone or stucco dressings, and slate roofs.

The facade to Bartholomew Row is of 3 storeys above a cellar and 7

irregular bays. A straight joint suggests that it is of 2 builds and

the ground-floor brickwork is painted. It has painted surrounds to the

openings and the parapet is rendered. The windows are casements. The

first floor windows have a sill band, and lugged architraves with

cornices and pulvinated friezes. The second floor windows have plain

surrounds. The left-hand bay on the ground floor contains a blocked

window opening. The second bay has a doorway with plain reveals and

a painted round arch. The third bay contains a wide doorway with

timber lintel. The fourth and seventh bays have doorways which are

similar to the first floor window surrounds,the left-hand one now

containing a window. The fifth and sixth bays have windows with plain

reveals and painted lintels. Between them is a door with a painted

surround with round arch, keystone, and impost blocks. In line with

this doorway there is a ridge chimneystack. The main part of the Fox

Street facade is of painted render and of 2 storeys and 3 bays. On the

ground floor there are 2 wide entrance doorways with elliptical

arches, with a blocked window between them which has an architrave.

The first floor windows have plain surrounds with a sill band, and

casement windows with glazing bars. The central window is tripartite.

To the right is the end wall of a late C19 workshop range, of 2

storeys under a narrow gable at the left, and of 3 storeys and 2 bays

under a monopitch roof at the right.

The main Fox Street building is linked to the rear of numbers 7-10

Bartholomew Row by ranges of shopping of 2 and 3 storeys, including

a workshop with a lantern light rising above the roof. The late C19

workshop range extends, under a monopitch roof, from Fox Street to the

rear of numbers 11 and 12 Bartholomew Row.

Interior. The former houses facing Bartholomew Row have brick vaulted

cellars, a mid C19 staircase, slate or marble fireplaces of mid and

late C19 type, and some brick floors. The interiors of the workshop

areas retain many features, including fixed workbenches directly lit

by ranges of single side-wall windows. At ground floor levels, sunken

walkways accommodate access to stamping machines. One area, central

to the ground floor workshops retains a two bay vaulted ceiling

reminiscent of fire proof construction in C19 textile mills. There is

a single cast metal pillar with a decorative capital associated with

this vaulting. An upper room, rectangular on plan was lit by the

raised lantern roof; an inserted C20 ceiling now obscures this

feature.

History. Map evidence shows that Bartholomew Row was built up by 1779

and Fox Street by 1810. Numbers 7-10 may have late C18 origins, but

numbers 11 and 12 were probably rebuilt in the early 1860's. The

earliest building fronting Fox Street may be William Spurrier's

malthouse of 1800, altered in the late 1870's or early 1880's when the

premises were occupied by a glass tablet maker. The shopping at the

rear of numbers 7-10 Bartholomew Row was in existence by 1855 and may

be the buildings listed as Spurrier's warehouse and shopping in 1823.

The shopping behind numbers 11 and 12 Bartholomew Row was built c1894

by Henry Austin Aquila, a ginger beer maker. In 1910 H.B. London and

Bros., Stampers, moved into 10 Bartholomew Row and by 1928 occupied

the entire complex. London Bros. were incorporated into Christopher

Wray in the early 1980's.

 

Christopher Wray - Heritage Gateway

 

On the door it says they have moved to Warwick Road in Solihull.

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Uploaded on October 30, 2010
Taken on October 30, 2010