Heathfield Hall, Residential mansion in Handsworth, England
Heathfield Hall was a neoclassical mansion in the Handsworth district of Birmingham, featuring stucco walls and a landscaped garden that surrounded the main house. The property also included a small detached workshop that the owner used for his own experiments and inventions.
The mansion was built for inventor James Watt, who lived there from around 1790 until his death in 1819. It was torn down in 1927 to make way for a new housing development.
The name of the estate comes from the heathland that once covered this part of Birmingham. Watt used his private workshop on the grounds as a personal space for tinkering, and it remained largely untouched until his death.
The building no longer stands, and the land where it once sat is now covered by residential streets called West Drive and North Drive in Handsworth. The area is easy to walk through, though nothing remains of the original property.
Watt's workshop was dismantled and moved to the Science Museum in London in the early 20th century, where it was reassembled using the original floorboards, windows, and personal objects left behind. Visitors there can see the room almost exactly as Watt left it on the last day he worked in it.
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