Gem Buildings
GEM BUILDINGS, 20-21, HOCKLEY HILL
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1391280
- Date first listed:
- 29-Apr-2004
- List Entry Name:
- Gem Buildings
- Statutory Address:
- GEM BUILDINGS, 20-21, HOCKLEY HILL
Location
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1391280
- Date first listed:
- 29-Apr-2004
- List Entry Name:
- Gem Buildings
- Statutory Address 1:
- GEM BUILDINGS, 20-21, HOCKLEY HILL
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- GEM BUILDINGS, 20-21, HOCKLEY HILL
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- District:
- Birmingham (Metropolitan Authority)
- Parish:
- Non Civil Parish
- National Grid Reference:
- SP 06027 88271
Details
BIRMINGHAM
997/0/10309 HOCKLEY HILL 29-APR-04 20-21 Gem Buildings
II Manufactory, now shops and clothing factory. 1913, with late C20 alterations. By Wood and Kendrick, architects of Birmingham, for Ginder and Ginder, diamond cutters and polishers . Painted brick and rendered exterior with concrete structural elements and detailing and with pitched roofs concealed by parapets. Functionalist pier and panel exterior enlivened by minimalist Edwardian Baroque detailing.
PLAN: Irregular H-plan, the complex linking Hockley Hill and Key Hill, and with display elevations to both frontages.
EXTERIOR: Hockley Street frontage of 4 storeys above a basement. Asymmetrical elevation, the windows occupying almost the entire frontage. The bays are arranged 1:2:1 with outer bays flanked by full height pilaster-like piers, the left-hand bay with an entrance to a stair well, the 2 centre bays with an off-centre doorway and a wide display window to the left, and a smaller window to the right. The right-hand bay has a wide ground floor window. Main doorway giving access to ground floor shops, formerly offices, with double 2 panel doors, ovolo-moulded surround, shallow- arched transom and multi-pane overlight. Doorway to left with shouldered segmental hood on brackets. Above doorways and altered window openings, wide display fascia below moulded cornice. Windows to upper floors have multi-pane metal frames, the heads and cills aligned in the 2 centre and right-hand bays. Left-hand bay with low, shallow- arched window above cornice, and windows above placed to light stair well levels. Piers flanking outer bays have dentilled caps , resembling the bases of open-bed pediments, behind which are parapet panels each bearing the inscription 'A.D.1913'
Key Hill elevation asymmetrical and more plainly detailed, with wide 4-light windows to bays 1 and 3 which retain presumed original transomed wooden frames with multi-pane transom lights. Doorway between the windows, this pattern determining the window pattern above, with wide and narrow multi-pane metal frames. Wide display fascia above doorway with sign which reads ' GEM BUILDINGS'. Right-hand bay with 3-light transomed window to ground floor, and 3 narrow lights to each upper floor.
HISTORY: The building plans show a sub-divided and heated basement floor with basement lights to the street elevations, a ground floor with front and rear entrances to multiple offices, and undivided workshop space to the 2 upper floors. The pitched roof is shown supported by a tensioned metal truss system.
A specialist manufactory of 1913, little-altered externally, and one of the earliest buildings in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter to display the influence of Functionalism in factory design.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 494075
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 08-Jun-2026 at 05:15:54.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.