Hagley Road, Edgbaston, with Calthorpe Estate offices

Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 21 Mar 2022

This is a view of the Hagley Road taken from the corner of Plough & Harrow Road, outside the Birmingham Oratory, looking towards Birmingham city centre. The house beyond the box junction is the office of the Calthorpe Estate, which has owned most of the land in this neighbourhood since 1717, when it was bought by the London merchant Sir Richard Gough. Gough's son married into the Calthorpe family, hence the name of the estate. The Gough-Calthorpes resisted industrial development on their land, despite its location on the outskirts of Birmingham, and from 1810 they developed the estate as a low-density suburb for wealthy professional and business people. The Calthorpe Estate office is typical of the houses built during this period. It displays the restrained classical style known as 'Regency' after the period of British history from 1811-20, when the future George IV ruled as regent on behalf of his father George III, whose declining mental state prevented him from exercising royal duties. Other houses from this era can be seen nearby on George Road Image], Image The Calthorpe Estate website gives a concise history of the development of the estate https://www.calthorpe.co.uk/about/heritage/ . in 1958 the Birmingham architect and planner John Madin drew up a master plan for the redevelopment of the Calthorpe estate. His architectural practice designed many buildings on the estate in his strongly modernist style. Two of them can be seen in this photo, behind the estate office house. The long four storey office building beyond the trees is Radclyffe House, dating from 1962, while beyond it can be seen Lyndon House, a tall block built in 1963. Sandwiched between them is a red-brick town house from the early 19th century phase of the estate's development. Wikipedia gives a list of Madin buildings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_John_Madin_buildings . Many have since been demolished, as his modernist style was not popular; he designed the controversial Central Library building in the city centre, which was knocked down in 2016. Much of his Calthorpe Estate work has survived, however. The John Madin site https://www.john-madin.info/ gives an overview of his work and includes a map of the Calthorpe Estate with Madin buildings marked on it. The Calthorpe Estate office house is a listed building and is described on the Historic England site https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1343415?section=official-list-entry .

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0