Lickey Grange is a

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

house and estate in the

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

of Marlbrook,

Bromsgrove District Bromsgrove is a non-metropolitan district, local government district in north-east Worcestershire, England. It is named after its only town, Bromsgrove, where its council is based, but also includes several villages and surrounding rural areas ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...

, near

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

Car A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...

manufacturer Manufacturing is the creation or Production (economics), production of goods with the help of equipment, Work (human activity), labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary se ...

Herbert Austin Herbert Austin, 1st Baron Austin (8 November 186623 May 1941) was an English automobile designer and builder who founded the Austin Motor Company. For the majority of his career he was known as Sir Herbert Austin, and the Northfield bypass ...

lived there for 31 years. It later became a

residential A residential area is a land used in which houses, housing predominates, as opposed to industrial district, industrial and Commercial Area, commercial areas. Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include ...

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

and is now private housing.

Early History

Lickey Grange was built for Birmingham

solicitor A solicitor is a lawyer who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and enabled to p ...

Joseph Rowlands in 1880. A large gabled brick house, it had largely symmetrical fronts on both the entrance and garden sides. The style and appearance of the house is that of a large suburban villa rather than a true country house. Although the

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

is unknown, it was probably designed by one of the large Birmingham firms whose main output was commercial work.

Herbert Austin

Herbert Austin had worked as an Engineer at the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Company in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

before returning to England with his Australian wife in 1893 to become

Manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

of its manufacturing operations in

Aston Aston is an area of inner Birmingham, in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Located immediately to the north-west of Birmingham city centre, Central Birmingham, Aston constitutes a wards of the United Kingdom, war ...

. In 1901, Austin established the Wolseley Tool and Motor Company; and he designed its first car. Austin left the Wolseley Tool and Motor company in 1905, and brought two former Wolseley designers with him to his new

Austin Motor Company The Austin Motor Company Limited was a British manufacturer of motor vehicles, founded in 1905 by Herbert Austin, 1st Baron Austin, Herbert Austin in Longbridge. In 1952 it was merged with Morris Motors, Morris Motors Limited in the new holdi ...

Longbridge Longbridge is an area in the south-west of Birmingham, England, located near the border with Worcestershire, historically being within this place. Public transport Longbridge is described as a hub for public transport with a number of bus ...

, which was then in the

countryside. However, he continued working for the Wolseley Sheep and Shearing Company, and was

Chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

from 1911 to 1931. Between 1893 and 1910, Herbert Austin had lived in various parts of Birmingham. In 1910, his family of two daughters and a son, moved to Lickey Grange, which included of surrounding land, and a lodge. Austin spent the rest of his life there. The

Austin 7 The Austin 7 is an economy car that was produced from 1922 until 1939 in the United Kingdom by Austin. It was nicknamed the "Baby Austin" and was at that time one of the most popular cars produced for the British market and sold well abroad. ...

was designed at Lickey Grange between 1921 and 1922 in the

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue stick, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . Cue sports, a category of stic ...

room (but not on the billiards table!). This was a 7

horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are t ...

(hp) car. It had been designed in private, at Sir Herbert Austin's expense, at Lickey Grange because the other directors of the Austin Motor company preferred bigger 12 hp-engined cars and were against the idea of a "small" car. Herbert Austin

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

ed some of the features and so gained a

royalty Royalty may refer to: * the mystique/prestige bestowed upon monarchs ** one or more monarchs, such as kings, queens, emperors, empresses, princes, princesses, etc. *** royal family, the immediate family of a king or queen-regnant, and sometimes h ...

for every Austin 7 sold by the company. Stanley Edge, the young design draughtsman who worked for Sir Herbert, lived at the Lodge, but ate his meals in the adjoining library. Herbert Austin died in 1941 and was buried in the graveyard of

Holy Trinity Church, Lickey Holy Trinity Church, Lickey is a Church of England parish church in Lickey, Worcestershire. History The foundation stone was laid on 16 May 1855 by Robert Windsor-Clive (MP). It was built as a chapel of ease to St John the Baptist Church, Broms ...

. The Grange was later sold.

Birmingham Royal Institution for the Blind

The Birmingham Royal Institution for the Blind (BRIB), a

charity Charity may refer to: Common meanings * Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons * Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sha ...

, then took over Lickey Grange and the first pupils moved-in in March 1953. The BRIB's school had previously been at Carpenter Road,

Edgbaston Edgbaston () is a suburb of Birmingham, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It lies immediately south-west of Birmingham city centre, and was historically in Warwickshire. The Ward (electoral subdivision), wards of Edgbaston and Nort ...

, but this site was acquired by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, (firstly for

Outside broadcasting Outside broadcasting (OB) is the electronic field production (EFP) of television or radio programmes (typically to cover television news and sports television events) from a mobile remote broadcast television studio. Professional video came ...

in 1954, then the Regional HQ in 1955), forcing the move to Lickey Grange. The BRIB kept the house much the same as it had been, but the grounds were developed to meet the needs of a residential school. Individual houses were built for

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

Hostel A hostel is a form of low-cost, short-term shared sociable lodging where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed in a dormitory sleeping 4–20 people, with shared use of a lounge and usually a kitchen. Rooms can be private or shared - mixe ...

blocks were built for the pupils, plus an assembly hall, indoor

swimming pool A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming and associated activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built abo ...

and class rooms. The school catered for a mixture of residential and day pupils. Until the 1980's, there were more residential pupils than day pupils; however changes in the methods of education - integration - led to a large drop in the numbers of children being sent to the school.

Redevelopment

The house is Victorian with the large rooms, such as a

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

and a billiards room. After the BRIB vacated the site it was redeveloped with teachers' houses nearest to the Old Birmingham Road sold off first. The rest of the site is now a gated community of up-market homes.

Access

Lickey Grange is accessed from the ''Old Birmingham Road'' (B4096). The B4096 appears to have once formed the route of the A38, but the A38 now bypasses Lickey.

References

* Sharratt, Barney, (2000). ''Men and Motors of The Austin: The inside story of a century of car making at Longbridge''. Sparkford: Haynes Publishing.

External links

Austin Memories

{{coord, 52.368178, -2.02584, display=title Country houses in Worcestershire