Heathfield Hall (sometimes referred to as Heathfield House) was a house in Handsworth, Staffordshire (the area became part of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

in 1911), England, built for the engineer

James Watt James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was fun ...

In 1790, Watt's business partner

Matthew Boulton Matthew Boulton (; 3 September 172817 August 1809) was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engine ...

recommended to Watt his friend, the architect

Samuel Wyatt Samuel Wyatt (8 September 1737, Weeford, Staffs. – London, 8 February 1807) was an England, English architect and engineer. A member of the Wyatt family, which included several notable 18th- and 19th-century English architects, his work was prima ...

, who had designed Boulton's home,

Soho House Soho House is a museum run by Birmingham Museums Trust, celebrating Matthew Boulton's life, his partnership with James Watt, his membership of the Lunar Society of Birmingham and his contribution to the Midlands Enlightenment and the Ind ...

, in 1789. Watt commissioned Wyatt to design Heathfield Hall. Watt died in the house in 1819, and was buried at nearby St Mary's Church. His garret workshop was then sealed, and few people were ever allowed to visit it. The contents - over 8,300 objects, including the furniture, window, door and floorboards - were removed in 1924 and used to recreate the room at the

Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in mu ...

in London, where they may still be viewed. Heathfield Hall - OS six-inch map - 1888-1913

After a series of subsequent owners who had slowly sold off the associated lands for development of semi-detached villas, in the 1880s engineer

George Tangye George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Preside ...

bought Heathfield Hall. He lived in the house until his death in 1920. After his family sold the house, from 1927 the hall was demolished and the lands redeveloped. What was the Heathfield Estate is now the land that comprises West Drive and North Drive in Handsworth, developed in the 1930s with a number of

arts and crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

and moderne-style houses.

References

{{Birmingham buildings, state=collapsed Houses in Birmingham, West Midlands James Watt Handsworth, West Midlands Houses completed in 1790 1927 in England 1790 in England Demolished buildings and structures in the West Midlands (county)