The Old Fire Station - Dayus Square - Jewellery Quarter

The Old Fire Station - Dayus Square - Jewellery Quarter, a photo by ell brown on Flickr.
Via Flickr:

In the Jewellery Quarter heading for Dayus Square.

The new Dayus Square development in the Jewellery Quarter (formerly known as Albion Square).

Named after local author Kathleen Dayus (1903 - 2003).

This is The Old Fire Station Childrens Nursery.

Grade II listed former fire station building at 67, 68 and 69, Albion Street B1, Birmingham.

ALBION STREET

1.

5104

Hockley B1

Nos, 67, 68 and 69

SP 0587 SE 27/4

II GV

2.

Built as the Corporation Fire Station 1909-10. Architect T G Price (The Builder

1909, ol 96, p 19), not H E Stilgoe the City Surveyor referred to on the

foundation stone. A large asymmetrical extended L-plan block of buildings

on a corner site. Built on 2 and 3 storeys of thin, machined, hard red bricks

with rebated pointing and ashlar dressings. Baroque derivation, the design

combines Edwardian "Wrenaissance" elements with Birmingham Arts and Crafts

motifs. Steep pitched roofs with stone coped gable ends and stone eaves cornices;

the ridge of the fire station proper is surmounted by a small cupola;

slightly battered chimney stacks with sharply cut stone cornices. The dominant

theme in the fire station corner block is the use of large scale stone arcaded

ground floor openings with squat piers and boldly modelled arches with triple

keys. This arch motif is echoed by the heavy door hood in the 2 storey link

with the north-east wing, in the crest above in the parapet and again in the

semi-circular pediment above the revealed centre bay of the otherwise plain

end block of the wing. The fire station proper has first floor windows

in eased architraves with cambered cornices, the parapet being raised in small

gables above the first 3 bays but stopping short where the eaves of the roof

are carried out over the plain fourth bay. In the 2 storey link and the 3

storey gabled section of the wing (balancing the fire station) the windows

have architraves and cornices with keys. The revealed centre bay beneath

the gable is entirely stone dressed with chequerwork to it rounded head.

Yard entrance flanked by piers to south-east with single storey gate house

beyond, similarly detailed to the main block. A prominent corner site.

Listing NGR: SP0595487414

Views of Dayus Square, with the old fire station one one side.

Dayus Square opened in Spring 2012, after it was developed during 2011.