No 3 The Close

Summary

An Arts and Crafts style house by W Alexander Harvey and W Graham Wicks, built between 1911-1913 as part of a group designed for the Society of Friends in memory of Henry Stanley Newman and Anna Newman

Reasons for Designation

No 3 The Close is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural Interest:

* as a good example of the Arts and Crafts movement in suburban Birmingham;

* for their association with a nationally important local architect, who was responsible for a number of associated buildings;

* for the overall quality of the design, making use of traditional, decent quality materials and creating a successful cohesive design, with associated landscaping.

Historic Interest:

* the buildings have a strong association with Henry Newman, a nationally important figure with significant involvement in the Birmingham Quaker movement;

* similarly, the buildings have a strong association with the Cadbury’s, a prominent industrialist family, with notable philanthropic endeavours inspired by the Quaker faith.

Group Value:

* nos 1-5 and nos 10-11 The Close possess good group value by virtue of their construction as part of a cohesive designed scheme and their architectural similarities.

History

Westhill College was founded in 1907 by Quakers for teacher training. The Close was designed in its grounds as a complex of housing, constructed as a memorial to the life and work of Henry Stanley Newman and his wife Mary Anna Newman. Newman was a Quaker philanthropist who worked to establish the Friends Foreign Mission Association, and accompanied by Anna, undertook missions to India, Africa, Palestine, and North America. The couple also campaigned to end slavery in East Africa and established the Leominster Orphan Homes and the Orphans Printing Press to provide training for orphaned children.

The architects of The Close are W Alexander Harvey and W Graham Wicks. Harvey was a local architect who studied at Birmingham's Municipal School of Art and was largely influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement. He was appointed by George Cadbury aged just twenty to develop the model garden suburb of Bournville for the Cadbury’s employees. In 1904, he then began his own architectural practice partnered with Wicks, his nephew, which was based in the city centre.

The firm were responsible for a number of listed buildings including the Church of St Francis of Assisi (GII: NHLE 1253744) in Sandwell, 48 Selly Wick Road in Birmingham (GII: NHLE 1463621) and further afield, the Chapel at Bembridge School, Isle of Wight (GII: NHLE 1268494).

The 1912 planning documents for the complex indicate that approval for five houses was applied for initially. These later became Nos 1-5. The application drawings indicate that the central property of the block, No 3, was designed and built for Mrs EH Cadbury, a member of the prominent local chocolatier’s family. The drawings also refer to future blocks, which includes Nos 10-11 located on the opposite side of the close, and an unrealised block located at the western end of the complex, which presumably would have housed the missing Nos 6-9. Later planning documents dating to 1914 refer to Nos 10-11 as ‘Block 4’, as the plans are for the approval of that build, and still refer to the enclosing block as ‘future’. The drawings indicate that the arcade screen walls that link Nos 1-5 were intended to be carried through the design of the complex, leading to the enclosure of the close.

The houses were later used as student and staff accommodation by the University of Birmingham but have been unoccupied for a number of years.

Details

An Arts and Crafts style house by by W Alexander Harvey and W Graham Wicks, built between 1911-1913.

MATERIALS: the house is constructed primarily of red brick with some pale stone detailing and clay tiled roofs, with a timber framed porch.

PLAN: The house is rectangular on plan, with flanking pierced screen walls.

EXTERIOR: No 3 is two-storey; there is a two-storey gabled timber framed porch, housing the main entrance, which is placed off centre to the principal façade. The gable and first floor of the porch are both jettied, and the first-floor features drop finial decorations. A large central window fronts the porch. To the left of the porch is a tall, external chimney stack, with coupled star section shafts and dentil detail. This left-hand bay of the house is unfenestrated, in contrast to the right-hand bay which features a variety of window sizes. On the ground floor, there are four unevenly spaced windows underneath segmental brick arches; the window closest to the porch is notably wider than the remainder. Also, to the ground floor, there is a small, pale stone engraved with the initials W.W., a possible reference to the first names of the two architects. Above on the first floor, there are also four windows, with that closest to the porch the largest in both width and depth. All the windows have stone cills.

At the rear of the house, there is a protruding central gabled bay, mirroring the protruding porch at the front of the property. This bay has a single window at both ground floor and first floor level; the ground floor window is wider and under a segmental brick arch. Within the return to the righthand side of the bay is a brick chimney stack with coupled star section shafts, a brick string course and dentil detail. The bay to the right-hand side of the property has a window to the first floor and a single width entrance to the ground floor, with flanking glazing. To the left-hand side of the property are two additional bays, one of which is single storey with a catslide roof and a gabled dormer window above. This is connected to the final bay of the property with a partially external chimney stack with coupled star section stacks, a brick string course and dentil detail.

INTERIOR: the principal door of the property leads to a small, internal lobby, with a secondary timber door leading to the hallway of the houses. From the hallway, a timber staircase with surviving balustrade leads to the first floor. There are surviving elements of historic architrave in the hallway of the house and leading into the other ground floor rooms. The ground floor doors appear to have been replaced with modern fire doors.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the house is connected to the adjacent houses by brick screen walls. The walls are built into the fabric of the adjacent buildings and are topped with hipped clay tiles. The walls have unevenly spaced arches.

Sources

Books and journals
Ballard, P, Birmingham's Victorian and Edwardian Architects, (2009)
Foster, A, Pevsner, N, Wedgwood, A, Birmingham and the Black Country, (2022), 432

Websites
Biographical Dictionary of British and Irish Architects, accessed 02/05/2024 from https://architecture.arthistoryresearch.net/firms/harvey-wicks

Other
Birmingham Archives, Planning Reference 26139
Birmingham Archives, Planning Reference 27919

End of official list entry

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