What was here?
A gun and rifle factory built for Westley Richards & Co. in 1894 in Grange Road, Bournbrook, near Selly Oak. The firm made sporting guns and rifles here until it moved back towards the Gun Quarter in 2008.
History
Out of the Gun Quarter
Most of Birmingham’s gun trade still worked in the crowded houses and backyard shops of the Gun Quarter at the end of the nineteenth century. The Victoria County History singles out Westley Richards as an exception: a firm with “a highly integrated factory” that, “before the end of the century, shook off the cramped surroundings of the gun quarter and went to Bournbrook”.
The new works in Grange Road was completed in 1894, according to the firm and Grace’s Guide.
114 years
Westley Richards made sporting guns and rifles at Bournbrook through two world wars and the long decline of the Birmingham gun trade. In 2008 it moved to converted factories in Pritchett Street, near the old Gun Quarter. The Grange Road building was demolished in 2009.
What happened here?
Westley Richards made guns and rifles here from 1894 to 2008.
Why it mattered
It was one of the few Birmingham gun factories built to bring the whole making process under one roof, and the home of the firm for more than a century.
Why it disappeared
Redevelopment
The firm moved to Pritchett Street in 2008 and the factory was demolished in 2009 (the firm’s history).
The same spot, then and now
1888–1913
Today
Old map: Ordnance Survey six-inch, reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland (CC BY 4.0). Today: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
What’s there now
What replaced it
Redevelopment around Grange Road in the 2010s, including student housing; the precise use of the factory site has not been confirmed.
What survives
Nothing of the factory is known to survive.
Today
Grange Road runs off the Bristol Road in Bournbrook, near the University of Birmingham. Nothing marks the site.
Key dates
- 1894 — Westley Richards moves to BournbrookWestley Richards opens a purpose-built gun factory in Grange Road, Bournbrook, leaving the cramped workshops of the Gun Quarter. It stays for 114 years before returning to Pritchett Street, near the old quarter, in 2008.
Sources and further reading
The firm and Grace’s Guide give 1894; the Victoria County History says only “before the end of the century”, and Wikipedia (lead only) mentions 1896. Wikipedia (lead only) names the architect as Charles Bateman and says the building was pulled down for the Selly Oak relief road; neither has been checked. The exact footprint of the factory on Grange Road has not been fixed, so the map point is approximate.
- Pritchett Street: Home of Westley Richards — Westley Richards & Co., Westley Richards (The Explora blog)
- Westley Richards and Co — Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History, Grace’s Guide
- Economic and Social History: Industry and Trade, 1500–1880, in A History of the County of Warwick, vol. 7, pp. 81–139 — W. B. Stephens (ed.), Victoria County History, 1964. 1840–1880
- Westley Richards — Wikipedia. lead only
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