199 Newhall Street, Harper's Hill, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham B3: Historic Building Record, 2020

Historic Building Record of redundant, Grade II Listed office/manufactory building commensurate with a 'Level 3' survey as defined by HE, comprising textual account, drawn and photographic record combined with associated archival research. No. 199 Newhall Street is a Grade II Statutorily Listed Building lying within the 'Industrial Middle' zone of the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter Conservation Area; it has until recently formed part of the premises of Baker and Finnemore Ltd., a company with a history dating back to the mid-19th century, originally occupying premises at No. 1 James Street and historically involved in the manufacture of steel pens. It is located to the south-east extreme of the wider Harper's Hill site, where it occupies a prominent location at the south-east end of the street block bounded by Newhall Street, Brook Street and James Street, c.150m west of St. Peter's Square. The building complex comprises three principal elements; a three-storey office/workshop range fronting onto Newhall Street, built in a simplified and restrained Neo-Georgian style, a large, two-storey purpose-built workshop block fronting Brook Street and James Street with a distinctive 'saw-tooth' north-light roof, and a multi-phase, composite group of buildings to the north-west, fronting James Street and abutting the rear of the Newhall Street range. The combined block extends to c.830m2 and is centred on NGR SP 06355 87435. The site, formerly occupied by late-C18th/early-C19th residential housing around a central yard, first indicated on a map of c.1818, was bought by Baker and Finnemore in 1911, the year the firm was incorporated, and sequentially redeveloped shortly thereafter for industrial purposes. The earliest element of the extant complex was the two-storey workshop block, built to the designs of Ewen Harper and Bro., architects, of Corporation Street, Birmingham, with deposited drawings dated 1911; a series of associated buildings, though stylistically distinct, are included on contemporary design drawings and are thus assumed to be contemporary. The Newhall Street frontage block formed part of the original plan, being delineated on primary drawings, though it did not form part of initial works, being appended later over three discrete phases of development. The earliest phase comprised a two-storey, three-bay range, the southern three bays of the extant range, at the angle of Newhall Street and Brook Street, erected in c.1915; this was extended to the north by three bays in c.1936, and the full, six-bay range raised to three storeys in c.1948/9. Baker and Finnemore's premises were later further enlarged by the addition of substantial workshop ranges to the north and north-west of the historical core in the later 20th century, the whole site remaining in the company's occupation until 2020, immediately prior to recording related to the current study. The constituent buildings that comprises No. 199 Newhall Street present a group of significant historical interest and considerable architectural merit, the latter in particular with respect to the formal treatment of the Neo-Georgian Newhall Street frontage range, the presence of which was accentuated by its heightening in the late-1940s, and this is reflected in its designation as a Grade II Listed Building. The complex combines administrative accommodation with extensive manufacturing workshops, warehousing and stores in a purpose-built, composite site redolent of earlier, 19th-century 'integrated' manufactories.

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