Ceramic tiles cover walls and floors, roofs and pavements, furniture and stoves, and can be seen in churches, mosques, pubs, shops, hospitals and homes in Birmingham. They are often combined with other forms of ceramics such as terracotta, faience and mosaic.

Some examples include:

Moseley Road Baths
This building has a Gothic renaissance red brick and terracotta frontage, lavishly embellished and decorated and inside various glazed bricks can be seen.

The Bartons Arms
This pub is best known for, its wall to wall Minton-Hollins tiles, from shiny-glazed decorative patterns to huge painted scenes.

A section of the Bartons Arms staircase

St. Mary’s College, Oscott
The interiors include early Minton encaustic tile pavements dating from around 1840’s.

The Tiles & Architectural Ceramics Society has served as Britain’s national society responsible for the study of tiles and architectural ceramics. The website is worth a look for anyone interested in tiles and decorative ceramics related to buildings.

Also ‘The Decorative Tile in Architecture and Interiors‘ by Tony Herbert and Kathryn Huggins explores the variety of techniques used by decorative tile manufacturers and the way in which designers, architects and builders exploited the colour palette of ceramic glazes. Coupled with design ideas from around the world and from the history of ceramics, the resulting buildings show how the creative use of ceramic tiles can produce architecture and interiors of quality.