Tales Of The City - The Coffin Works

 

On Wednesday I caught the train over to Birmingham to meet Nikki for a spot of culture. 

I'd wanted to visit The Coffin Works for ages and after my friend Aril blogged about her trip (HERE), I went online and booked a tour. 

Newman Brothers, established by brother Alfred & Edwin Newman in 1882, began life as a brass foundry casting brass for toys, jewellery and furniture. In 1894, the company moved to a new factory at Fleet Street in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter which had been designed by Roger Harley in 1892.

The move to the new factory coincided with a change in Newman Brothers' production line. The company was listed as a Coffin Furniture Manufacturer and specialised - not in coffin making - but in the manufacture of brass furniture for use in the production of coffins (such as handles, nameplates, crucifixes). The production of coffin furnishings used similar manufacturing techniques and processes to those the company had employed previously and with the Victorian's passion for lavish funerals and the almost cult-like rituals associated with the mourning period, the funerary industry presented more opportunity for profit. 

Although the Newman Brothers dissolved in 1999, the factory wasn't updated after the 1960s so, other than the souvenirs on display in reception, entering it is like stepping back in time. 

On entry visitors are given a clocking-in card and invited to clock-in. For someone who worked in a Black Country factory for a couple of years, it brought back more than a few memories.

Forget chocolate box pretty country cottages, as self-confessed townies, this is the type of architecture that makes Nikki and I go weak at the knees although Mark, our guide, was at pains to explain how filthy, smelly and claustrophobic the yard would have been back in its heyday.

Piece work, noxious chemicals, an outside loo and child labour, it's probably not somewhere you'd want to work but it's wonderfully atmospheric on a sunny June day.

Newman Brothers didn't sell to the public. Their products were sold to funeral directors who'd endeavour to sell the finest and most lavish fittings to Victorian mourners who believed that the grander the funeral, the more it proved how much the deceased was loved.  

It's a crime to think these beautiful castings ended up six feet under. What a waste!

During its years in operation, Newman Brothers produced some of the finest up-market coffin furniture in the world, used in the funerals of statesmen such as Sir Winston Churchill, celebrities like Judy Garland as well as in funerals for members of the royal family, including George V, George VI, the Queen Mother and Princess Diana (its believed that the fittings for Queen Elizabeth's coffin were manufactured here as royalty would have their coffins made as soon as they were crowned, often decades before their deaths). 

At its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, the company employed around 100 people and was exporting products internationally to West Africa, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, the Caribbean, Canada and Malta.

The company also made shrouds. The machinists would be positioned near the windows at the front of the factory to make the most of the natural light and facing away from the yard so - apparently - they wouldn't be distracted by the men slaving away downstairs!

Shrouds are like hospital gowns and tie at the back, they weren't hemmed as the bottom edge is tucked under the deceased's feet. Traditionally white, the company also offered shrouds in the Aston Villa and Birmingham City team colours as well as in a strange shade of peach, said to be more flattering for South Asian skin tones (although I can't imagine anything is particularly flattering when you're dead). 

By the 1970s the increasingly popularity for cremation led to a lack of demand for metal fittings. Newman Brothers did produce a single range of plastic handles, breastplates and lid motifs but were generally unwilling to compromise their reputation as manufacturers of the highest quality goods.

Joyce Green, who joined Newman Brothers as company secretary in 1949, gradually moved up the ranks until in 1989 she bought the company and remained the sole owner until the factory closed in 1998 and was officially dissolved  year later. Adamant that the factory shouldn't be redeveloped and the company's history forgotten she rejected an offer for £1 million from a property developer, selling it to the Birmingham Conservation Trust for £400,000 with the proviso that it be turned into a museum. The Coffin Works eventually opened as a museum in 2014, five years after Joyce's death. 

We absolutely loved our tour of The Coffin Work and our guide, Mark, was absolutely brilliant. If you've never been before you really ought to! There's some cracking stuff in the gift shop, we're now both proud owners of The Coffin Works tote bags (excellent conversation pieces next time we fly) and Jon was very happy with his coffin shaped chocolate lollipop adorned with jelly snakes and skulls (it lasted about 3 minutes!)

No trip to Birmingham's complete without a curry so off we went to our favourite place, The Indian Brewery, for Chaart Attack and a pint (or two) of locally brewed Indian Summer Pale ale...cheers!

It was rammed with office workers when we got there, we had the last seats in the place. 

Our outfits got lots of love.

I wore a vintage dress made from silk scarves, hand sewn by a Vinted seller's mother in 1971 and mine for an amazing £15.

Nikki's fabulous Afghan dress was a gift from a neighbour who bought it off the Portobello Road in the early 1970s. 

The Coffin Works, 13 - 15 Fleet Street, Birmingham B3 1JP

Admission: £10 (Gift Aid £11)

Opening hours and tour timings HERE

Thanks for reading, see you soon!