Picture caption: A typical Arts and Crafts building on Bournville Village Green
The University of Birmingham is to sell part of its Selly Oak campus, creating an interesting opportunity for a developer to take on the Grade II listed houses and other heritage buildings on the site.
Set in leafy south Birmingham, the Arts and Crafts buildings have been owned by the university since 2001, and have remained vacant for much of that time, exposing the institution to criticism from local campaigners.
The university has now begun a tender process to find a developer, with their Chief Financial Officer Erica Conway declaring: “The sale of this land will bring more housing to Birmingham and unlock new opportunities that will create even more jobs and drive growth across the city.”
Campaigners, especially the Friends of the Close group, have been pushing for the buildings to be brought back into use for many years. They have also successfully campaigned for some of the buildings to be listed, to prevent any future demolition.
The Close is made up of seven Grade II listed cottages, a larger home called Archibald House, and another building called Alan Geale House. They were designed by William Alexander Harvey and his partner Graham Wicks, the architects behind many of the buildings in the nearby Bournville village and the wider Bournville estate.
The buildings were originally built to accommodate an expanding training facility for Quaker Sunday School teachers, called Westhill College. This was founded in 1907 by the Canadian Presbyterian George Hamilton Archibald. Westhill College merged with the university’s education department in 1947.
The site has a strong connection with the Cadbury family, with Barrow Cadbury, grandson of the chocolate company founder, and his wife Geraldine, involved in setting up the college. Cottage number three was designed and built for Barrow’s mother, Dame Elizabeth Cadbury, an activist, politician and philanthropist who was married to George Cadbury.
In more recent years, between 2005 and 2024, the site was used to film the BBC series Doctors. However, after two decades without occupants, the buildings are looking a little worse for wear in places, with campaigners reporting boarded-up windows and rooftop holes. Cottages one to five, ten and eleven are protected by their listed status, but campaigners are undertaking the research needed to protect Archibald House and Alan Geale House, as there are fears a developer may not preserve all of the buildings. There is also a rectory and a chapel on the site.
In June of this year, the MP for Northfield, Laurence Turner, wrote to the University of Birmingham’s vice chancellor, Adam Tickell, saying, “Many fine buildings have deteriorated and been demolished, and that loss is now lamented. It is important that The Close does not join that list.”
It’s unclear whether this led to the university looking for a developer, but it does seem that there was very little defence for leaving the buildings vacant for so long.
No doubt, in such a popular urban area, any developer will want to maximise their return on investment, but hopefully the development will remain sympathetic to the current character of the site.
Meanwhile, if you need any assistance with the structural elements of an upcoming project, please do get in touch.
