Icknield Street has been steeling – see what we did there? – itself up or its upcoming Assay Office!

It’s another work in progress, that seem to be popping up all of the Quarter, ever changing it’s landscape and further improving its landscape.

The construction, set to be Birmingham’s brand new Assay Office, is on a speedy road with its steel frame already in place.
It also has an estimated completion somewhere in 2015.
The new Assay Office will be a part of the St George’s development.

Assay Office Birmingham is categorised as one of the city’s oldest buildings, and one of the busiest Assay Offices in the UK.

It’s legal duty to hallmark precious metals, like silverware and jewellery, may contribute to its mark, (an anchor) that has been struck on over 125 million articles, in the first fourteen years of the 21st century.

Leading industrialist, Matthew Boulton, founded the Office in the late 1700’s.
The Grade II listed building still currently resides on Newhall Street, as it has for almost 140 years.
The building has had renovation projects of being extended and added to, on several occasions throughout the years and is, at the present moment, a maze of working areas – planning to move to a new site became necessary.

The buyers of the building have vowed they will attempt to keep the buildings former character wherever possible.

The steel frame, set to be the new Assay Office – next to the Kettleworks building which is currently being refurbished into apartments –  is set to be two/three stories tall, offering better conditioned facilities for the staff members and customers, allowing a broader public access to the resources it has to offer regarding the private library, and silver collection.

It will include a mixture of training rooms, conference rooms, and the correct facilities that will enable jewellery exhibits to take place.

A six-month project will see the electronic and photographic cataloguing sector of the office’s 1,700-item silver collection, coins, medals, historic dies and library containing over 5,000 books, catalogues and drawings, dating back to the 17th century.

Have you seen the metalworks happening on Icknield Street?
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