Ardstone Uk Regional Office Fund Victoria Square House
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ARDSTONE UK REGIONAL OFFICE FUND VICTORIA SQUARE HOUSE VICTORIA SQUARE BIRMINGHAM HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SITE’S EVOLUTION AND SIGNIFICANCE JUNE 2014 VICTORIA SQUARE HOUSE HISTORIC RESEARCH CONTENTS Section Page No. 1.0 Introduction 1 2.0 Historic development of the site and Victoria Square 2 3.0 Victoria Square House 24 4.0 Planning History 52 5.0 Sources 57 APPENDICES 1 Victoria Square House listed building entry 2 Colmore Row Conservation Area designation report Date: 21 July 2014 Location: P:\CURRENTJOBS\PD9532 Victoria Square House Birmingham\Pinsent and Masons Dossier\140612 - ME Historic Report\140721 Site and Building History.doc VICTORIA SQUARE HOUSE 1 HISTORIC RESEARCH 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 This report has been prepared by Montagu Evans. It provides a summary of the historical development of Victoria Square House based on documentary research and offers some observations on the significance of the building and its setting. 1.2 The research involved consulting documents held by Birmingham City archives and Birmingham City Library. The national Post Office archive at The National Archive was also visited to view the original drawings of the building. Historic planning applications held by Birmingham City Council were also viewed. These latter documents were only available on microfiche; however, copies of plans and drawings were printed. Regrettably, the quality of these images is poor. 1.3 In addition, research also considered web-based and printed sources. Further details are provided in section 5.0. 1.4 The brief for the research comprised: History of Victoria Square House; Historic evidence of the foyer; Images of entrance doors and their use; Images of window decoration details; Oversight of the development of Victoria Square and the General Post Office’s relationship with the surrounding buildings, and Oversight of the stages of the Square’s use/movement. VICTORIA SQUARE HOUSE 2 HISTORIC RESEARCH 2.0 HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE SITE AND VICTORIA SQUARE 2.1 Westley’s map of 1731 is the earliest extant map of Birmingham and shows the extent of Birmingham at that time (Figure 2.1). During the first part of the 18th century, development was restricted mainly to two areas and land which became available changed hands frequently in a rising market. The two areas of main development were a small area owned by Richard Smallbrook near to St Martin’s Church – hence Smallbrook Street but since demolished. The second area was a quadrilateral bounded, in the 1960s, by Steelhouse Lane, Bull Street, Dale End, and Stafford Street. Figure 2.1: Westley’s plan of Birmingham, 1731 2.2 In the early part of the 19th century, the centre of Birmingham was still around the area now known as the Bull Ring, although by then there were signs that it was to be replaced as the town's centre by a site further north, nearer to the canal basins and on land less cluttered with valuable buildings. The Town Hall (opened 1834) was built at the west end of Ann Street (now Colmore Row), and around it other public buildings have been grouped, notably the Council House (opened 1879) and the Civic Centre (begun 1938) (Victoria County History – Warwickshire, hereafter “VCH”). The Bull Ring retained and enlarged its function as a market. 2.3 The coming of the railways in the 19th century had a major impact on the development of the City. Stations at Curzon Street and Lawley Street were constructed to the east, on the periphery of the City core. These were, however, soon considered inconvenient, and, following the formation of the London and North Western Railway VICTORIA SQUARE HOUSE 3 HISTORIC RESEARCH a central ‘New Street Station’ was constructed in 1854. The station displaced a large part of the central population and at the same time allowed commuters to arrive at the heart of the City. The location of the station, immediately south of the site, meant that the volume of pedestrian flow and traffic grew considerably over this period (VCH). 2.4 Following the construction of the railways, the central area was then redeveloped with slum clearances in the Colmore Row and New Street areas: “several old and squalid streets were cleared to make space for the new public buildings around Victoria Square. The most extensive destruction of old buildings at this period was that which resulted from the building of Corporation Street, the first part of which was opened in 1879; it was driven straight through one of the oldest and least healthy parts of the town.” (VCH) 2.5 The Birmingham Improvement Act of 1851 transferred to the corporation the functions of the street commissioners for Deritend and Bordesley and for Duddeston and Nechells, and of the parish officers of Edgbaston, and empowered the corporation to raise money and carry out certain works of improvement (VCH). A vociferous group in the council, however, favoured strict economy, and apart from the purchase of land in Edmund Street, to be used for public buildings, there was no further expansion of the council’s activities until the 1860s, when the first libraries were opened and the corporation began to acquire parks (VCH). Victoria Square Development 2.6 The area around what is now Victoria Square has developed steadily since the construction of the Town Hall in 1834, as illustrated in the 1890 Ordnance Survey Map (see Figure 2.6). 2.7 The Street Commissioners obtained an Act to erect the Town Hall in 1828 (Foster, p. 57). The Catholic architect J Hansom with his partner E Welch, won a competition in 1830 for its design, beating notable others including Charles Barry and Thomas Rickman. The Town Hall is a leading example of neo-Classical architecture. Raised on a heavily rusticated plinth, it is modelled on a Roman peripteral temple, based on that of Castor and Pollux at Rome. It is listed grade I. 2.8 The following extract from the Pevsner Architectural Guide for Birmingham describes the construction of the building “Hansom & Welch designed a free-standing temple, fourteen bays by seven (as it now exists). This proved too large for the site, and had to be cut down. The 1832-4 building was only twelve bays long, with a plain podium on the W where houses stood very close, and a blank N side. Almost immediately it was realized that there was no space for an orchestra for concerts, and in 1837 Charles Edge extended the N side with a large rectangular internal recess, and moved the organ into it. Then in 1849-51, when a new street was opened on the N and W sides, Edge completed the W podium to match VICTORIA SQUARE HOUSE 4 HISTORIC RESEARCH that on the E, extended the building to fourteen bays, and built the N front with a pediment to match that on the S. At the same time he excavated the basement room below the Great Hall, and completed carving the twenty columns which has been left raw in 1834. The new N front had two internal columns flaming the recess, removed in 1889-91 when staircases designed by Cossins & Peacock were built to give access to the roof space. In 1995 the arcade at the S end of the podium, with its wonderful vistas through the arches, was infilled by the City Council’s Department of Planning & Architecture, to increase the size of the foyer.” (Foster, p. 58) 2.9 The Town Hall as it was built in the 1830s can be seen in Figure 2.2. Figure 2.2: The Town Hall in the 1830s VICTORIA SQUARE HOUSE 5 HISTORIC RESEARCH Figure 2.3: The Town Hall in 1895 2.10 At this time the Town Hall had opposite it, across the ‘square’, Christ Church by Charles Norton with William Whitmore. Construction of the church began in 1805 but went through several hands before completion in 1814. The much criticised spire had replaced the proposed cupola. The building was demolished in 1899, changing the composition of the Square Chamberlain helped to complete. But more was to come. Figure 2.4: Christ Church and the square in the 1890s VICTORIA SQUARE HOUSE 6 HISTORIC RESEARCH Victorian Changes: Chamberlain Vision 2.11 The site for the Council House on the northern side of the ‘square’ was bought in 1853, however, it was not until 1870 that a competition for the design of the building was held. Foster writes of this competition and the building’s construction: “What followed was a farcical intrigue; designs were supposed to be anonymous, but competitors’ names were well known, Waterhouse recommended tow designs in turn by outside architects, the first by W. Henry Lynn of Belfast, and the Council substituted ones by the local architects, with Thomason’s placed first. His scheme placed the council buildings on the S half of the site and the courts on the N. The elevations were in an expanded version of his Italianate commercial manner with round-headed windows separated by paired Corinthian columns. Square turrets hinted at Gilbert Scott’s Foreign Office, and in the centre was a huge tower with a concave truncated pyramid top. The Builder praised the planning, but compared the elevations to ‘a monster railway hotel’. In 1873, the Estates Committee persuaded Thomason radically to change the exterior, introducing a giant order, a much-praised feature of Lynn’s design that was also in sympathy with the Town Hall. The foundation stone was laid by Joseph Chamberlain on 17 June 1874. The Council first met in its new Chamber in 1878 and formal opening followed on 30 October 1879. The courts were not built.” (Foster, p.