Text and pictures by Mike Allmey, first owner of The Hovel after restoration
This was a very unusual project to save and then preserve a workers’ hovel which had lain lost in the city for more than 30 years.
It had disappeared beneath undergrowth on Jerry’s Lane in Erdington.
Working with the owner, a developer, local amenity groups and Birmingham City Council, the trust turned it back into a home, albeit a modest one. In 2008 one writer reviewed the project, saying:
All fixtures and fittings were recreated as accurately as possible to the originals, right down to the hand-made door catches and odd-widths of wood used to make the doors. Even the lock in the front door was made by hand by the locksmiths who look after Litchfield Cathedral – the key was over six inches long and had a shaft over ¼-inch thick! Even the glass used in the windows was hand-made, although this did have to be specially imported from Holland.
Read the article that Mike Allmey wrote on Pictures of England.