We are excited to have been commissioned to consider alternative options for the future development of the site, following two previous schemes that have been rejected by the local authority. As a starting point we have carried out a heritage statement to understand the significance of the site.

The Legacy of Factory Buildings in the Black Country

An Analysis of the Historic Landscape Characterisation’ (2010) divides the different types of manufacturing sites into ‘core’ industries and those that clustered around a particular locality or town were referred to as ‘specialisms’. Core industries had a closer, more direct link to the mineral extraction which was the basis of the Black Country economy. Local specialisms like secondary metal-working processes were related to the location of skills and expertise rather than geological sources. This is the case at Churchfield Street where there were a number of secondary specialist companies including sheet metal rolling; anvil and vice manufacturing and fender and bucket manufacturers within a few hundred metres of the application site. The report identified that continuity of industrial activity on a site has been the most effective means of preserving historic factory buildings. Of the buildings which are in localities of continuing industrial use, close to half appear to have survived as standing buildings but buildings on industrial sites that have now been turned to non-industrial uses have shown poor survival rates particularly where they have been incorporated into growing residential suburbs.

No38 Churchfield Street - Considering options for development

Although in a poor condition number 38 is one of the last remaining late Victorian industrial buildings in the area. Arguably it has survived more by chance than by design and despite its condition it retains a strong street presence and contributes to the interest and residual working industrial character of the area. The requirements of modern industry make the former factory unsuitable for industrial use and throughout the 20th century the trend in the surrounding areas and the northern section of Churchfield St in particular, has been towards residential. Whilst some of the remaining historic buildings in the area contribute to local character and distinctiveness many diminish it through unsympathetic alterations in poor quality modern materials. Currently the application site makes a negative contribution to the area due to its poor condition, neglect and lack of use but sensitively altered and refurbished it could reinvigorate a “sense of place” for the area.

Understanding the building, its history and significance and how it contributes to the interest of the area are fundamental to designing an appropriate scheme for the building. This assessment has explored aspects of the building’s origins, functions and importance as one of very few surviving workshops of this size connected to Dudley’s industrial past. As a sheet metal workshop producing fenders, buckets and other metal goods it was an important contributor to Dudley’s specialist industry. As a garment factory it was also part of an important industry associated with the region.

The Building

The principal structure on the site is an orthogonal shaped building of approximately 60m2 with two storeys plus a basement, positioned with the gable end to the street. The structure has solid brick, 9” walls, timber joisted floors and a corrugated cement, double pitch sheet roof. It is recognisably industrial in character but with a chapel-like appearance heightened by various classically derived ornamental details. These include engaged pilasters, ornate polychromatic brick arched window heads and an embellished pediment with a dentil cornice and an inscribed date-stone at its centre. An outstanding feature of the building is the decorative brickwork: a hard red for the walls and blue engineering bricks for the pilasters and copings, and used to highlight key features like the window surrounds and door openings on the side and rear elevations. Red, blue and cream bricks are used effectively on the principal elevation for the window and door heads. Given the close proximity of a number of famous brickworks and blue ‘Staffs’ being a regional speciality it is not surprising that these materials were used but it is unexpected that a fairly modest workshop should be built with such architectural flair. The bricks are not only decorative but also refractory: reds from fire clay, usually used for furnaces and blue bricks from the local red clay, Etruria marl, which when fired at a high temperature in a low-oxygen reducing atmosphere takes on a deep blue colour and attains a very hard, impervious surface with high crushing strength and low water absorption. Materials perfectly chosen for a workshop where extreme temperatures, fire and steam are ever present.

There were a number of outbuildings, probably single storey to the rear of the site. These are evident on historic maps and aerial photographs and were removed late 20th century. As a metal workshop a number of separate processes would have taken place including hammering, cutting, hole punching, annealing and the fabrication and shaping of finished articles that as the business and technology developed may have been housed in these ancillary spaces.

Internally there are corner flues with firebrick linings and fire grates at basement level positioned to obviate the effects of adverse weather, ensuring a steady draught for the fires. It is likely that each floor was open plan, single cell and undivided to maximise floor space . At basement level a large opening at the rear is framed by slim iron stanchions that support the floors above and within the bricked up front windows are rusted mechanical vents. Plasterboard ceilings, now partially collapsed and broken stairs across window openings are later additions. Between exposed joists can be glimpsed structural steels but amongst all the debris and fire damaged fabric it is hard to identify any further evidence of its former industrial functions. The upper floors are not currently accessible and it is unlikely that anything of interest remains due to the general dilapidated state, repeated cycles of fire damage and water ingress and the intrusion of anti-social behaviours on the premises.

To the South of the Building the site is open with overgrown scrub and bounded by the end of a row of two storey terraced residential dwellings. To the North of the building there is a pedestrian access to open land which was formerly used for industry.

Visually the building confounds easy classification as it does resemble a chapel but the historic evidence points to it having been built as a workshop or small scale manufactory. Another example of a similar architectural form and detailing on a contemporary ironworks has been identified through archival research. The building in question was demolished as part of the post-war slum clearance. William Naylor’s Ironworks on Bond Street was of a similar appearance and remarkably also like several Methodist chapels. No connection between Naylor’s and the application site has been found other than their use. The massive presence of Quakers in the iron industry, with members of the Society of Friends either to have owned or to have controlled between a half and three-quarters of the ironworks of England and Wales at the start of the eighteenth century undoubtedly influenced the design of earlier ironworks. Following in the tradition of factories looking like other building types with early examples of mills and the like resembling country houses usually due to the estate owners providing the capital for industry and engaging the architect who has previously worked on their houses. 18th century ironworks undoubtedly resemble Meeting Houses. Additionally, the link between industrial growth, innovation and Nonconformist religions in Birmingham and its environs is well-known. Moreover, the 1860s and 1870s were the heyday of the Nonconformist churches in the Black Country with countless “Ebenezers” and “Mount Zions” throughout the area built with characteristic red-brick pediments, arched windows and stone copings. Dudley had a number of chapels and meeting houses in the central area supported by an increasingly wealthy mercantile and industrial class. Access to capital through church and chapel association was an accepted way for artisan and workshop based craftsmen to gain financial backing for capital projects like building new premises so it is possible that the outward chapel-like appearance of the application site was a deliberate architectural choice that visually associated the founder with his community.

Historic Development

38 Churchfield Street was built on an undeveloped, originally triangular, shaped site. The shape of the site dictated the form of the rear ancillary range of buildings of which there is little known as they have been re-built and enlarged several times over the course of the history of the site as can be seen from the map regression. A date stone of 1866 gives us a precise date of its construction and the 1865 Richard’s Map and the 1835 Treasure map affirms that the site was undeveloped prior to this period. Roper’s 1855 map (not included) shows the entire Church Field to be sub-divided into small enclosures and piecemeal development encroaching from the east as previously described. Despite its chapel-like form the site was built as a workshop/factory for the purpose of metal finishing and fabricating. Late 19th century trade directories indicate that Joseph T. Pitchford operated as an Iron Worker from these premises but he may not have been the first tenant or owner of the building as an advertisement in Kelly’s Directory for 1900 would suggest that the company or the premises had previously been the concern of the late John Shakespeare and that the company was established in 1850. Census data from 1871 has a Joseph T. Pitchford, aged 36, living at 58 Bent Street, Brierley Hill with his wife and five daughters, occupation Iron Roller. In 1850 he would have been 16 and perhaps an apprentice but not likely the owner of a sheet iron rolling business. Another name mentioned in connection with the locality in Chitham’s ‘Story of Dudley’ is William Henry Meese, a blacksmith and sheet-iron worker who also made rifle tubes. Earlier trade directory entries describe Pitchford as a ‘Sheet Iron worker’ but by 1900 the company is described as ‘Iron Bucket Makers; Sheet Iron Ware Manufacturers; Iron Keg Manufacturers’. No precise location is given in the listings and initially the address is described as Queen’s Cross Dudley which is nearby but later directories use Churchfield Street. This correlates with other entries for similar metal working businesses in the area that are also described in later directory entries as being on Churchfield Street.

According to consecutive OS maps the site remained in use as a Sheet Iron Works until at least the mid-20th century. By the early 1960s the building was no longer in use for the metal trades and operated as a garment factory for W. Devonport and Sons. From early to mid-20th century the Black Country became home to many garment factories. Devonport and Sons was small-scale compared to the nearby Dudley Townmills but nevertheless was part of an industry for which the region became known. The proprietors daughter recollects that the factory caught fire one night, and from her home in Hagley View Road she was able to see the embers from the flames. William Devonport died in 1987 and the company was dissolved. Since then the building has not had a permanent use and as such has fallen into disrepair and dereliction attracting anti-social behaviour which has further threatened the building.

james mackintosh architects limited

studio@jmackintosh.com

First Floor, 21 The High Street,

Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire
OX7 5AD

01608 692 310 / 07880 727 150