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Listing: Now Wolverhampton Glass but an
attractive landmark building with historic importance. Locally Listed,
approved November 2001.
Blue Plaque: commemorating Clyno cars and
motorcycles. (This is on the wrong building, the Clyno factories were at
the other end of the street.
Comment: Unfortunately both the local listing
and the blue plaque are wrong. Clyno cars and motorbikes were not
made here and there is no evidence that Clyno ever had anything to do
with the building. Clynos were made at the other end of Pelham
Street (in what was then called Victor Street) in Tower Works and Fort
Works.
These buildings have had several uses, one of which was as
a factory for Rudge Wedge cycles, who may have built it. For a full
account of the building at this time,
click here. Later it became the premises of the Pelham Laundry
which, alongside the Wolverhampton Steam Laundry in Sweetman Street, was
one of the two big laundries in the town. It may also, at one
time, have been a bakery.
But the listing is still a perfectly proper one because of
the building's historic interest (though not that which the listing
gives) and its architectural interest - it's an unusual and very
pleasant design - and because of its landmark quality. Further it
is an important link with the past of this area, a borderland between
industrial and residential uses, which is currently in a state of flux
and in need of characterful links with the past.
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