Friday Photo: Hollymoor Hospital Water Tower

Today’s Friday photo is the Grade II listed Hollymoor Hospital water tower, a really interesting building located to the south of Birmingham in Northfield.

Recognisable from afar due to its height and green copper dome, the tower housed the large tanks that provided water to the Hollymoor hospital complex. It is one of the only surviving and re-purposed buildings on the site, which was closed in 1994 and largely demolished.

The tower itself was part of a design by Martin & Martin, formerly Martin & Chamberlain, the prolific Birmingham architects responsible for many public buildings within the city. Hollymoor psychiatric hospital opened in 1905 as an annexe to the Rubery Hill asylum, both sites housing patients in a more rural farmland setting compared to the main inner city facility.