City’s historic ‘Pelican Works’ at risk of being lost, claim experts
AFORMER electroplating factory in Birmingham has been named among the top ten most endangered buildings in England and Wales.
The Pelican Works is a grade IIlisted building in the Jewellery Quarter which was built in the 1860s.
But the Victorian Society has included the site on the corner of Great Hampton Street and Hockley Street on its 2019 countdown.
The annual list, now in its 12th year, highlights the most threatened Victorian and Edwardian buildings and structures throughout the two countries and aims to expose the plight of these buildings in the hope that increased awareness and appreciation will help save them.
The Pelican Works was built for Thomas Wilkinson of Sheffield as an electroplating works – the company being noted for its fine cutlery.
The Victorian Society described its red-brick frontage as like a small Italian Palazzo, with the sculpture of a Pelican, the company crest, placed above the main entrance.
Currently only the front of the building is occupied by a fashion company and the structures appear to be generally increasingly neglected, it said.
Earlier this year there was a serious collapse of part of the Hockley Street shopping range which closed the road. Part of the rear range has since been demolished on safety grounds.
The charity added: “This could be reinstated but little seems to be being done at present to secure the future of this extraordinary building and other recent collapses at historic factory buildings in the quarter mean we are extremely concerned the Pelican Works is currently at risk.”
Director Christopher Costelloe added: “The Jewellery Quarter, one of Birmingham’s most loveable areas, combines increasing development pressure with some very derelict historic buildings.
“The Pelican Works is a prominent Shadwell Court, Norfolk Queensbury Tunnel, West Yorkshire
Everton Library, Liverpool Cowbridge School, Vale of Glamorgan
Hulme Hippodrome, Manchester Former Church of St Luke, Warrington
Former Leslie Arms Public House, Croydon
Corn Exchange/Former Town Hall, Swindon
symbol of the area and it must be repaired before more of it collapses.”
One other building in the West Midlands has made the 2019 list.
Chatterley Whitfield Colliery, in north Staffordshire, is a disused coal mine which is considered to be the most comprehensive survival of a deep mine site in England from the industry’s period of peak production.
It was the first colliery in the UK to produce one million tons of saleable coal in a year.
A museum was opened after its closure but that itself has since shut down.