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BigTop

That's interesting. It looks as though the Big Top site development was quite a major undertaking. I believe that a number of people have always regarded as a post-war development but it is now obvious that it wasn't.

I'm not quite clear from earlier posts whether these plans were laid in March 1943 for later installation or whether the semi-permanent structures were already installed, or partly installed, by then which seems probably to have been the case (see post #36).

I have written elsewhere in the Forum (Blitz and the Homefront section) about a memory from April 1943, when I was taken to a circus there as a birthday treat. I am 95% sure of that date. It was a very windy day and my mother was not at all happy to be sitting in a tent in those conditions! She was probably right - I think I remember the tent being reported as having been blown down in the next day or two after our visit.

It would be interesting to know the timing of when the site was cleared and levelled off, presumably by 1942; at what point it started to be used for different purposes; and when the semi-permanent structures remembered by many people were first installed.

Chris
 
This may be one of the images lost from the earlier posts on this thread. Afraid I don't have a date for it and can't remember where it came from. But an interesting view over the Big Top tents. Would the photograph have been taken looking away from High Street towards New Street on the extreem left ? Viv.

image.jpeg
 
Mike will probably be able to pin this down but it seems to me that the identity of the modern, 4-storey, apparently undamaged building to the rear, right, is crucial. It bears the sign "NFS WATER". The picture was taken from the same vantage point as several other newspaper images of the time. Obviously convenient for the photographers. My gut feeling is that it may be looking away from New Street, probably from about the third floor. Somewhere around the Odeon cinema or nearer the corner? Would the Times building be too far along?

Or is Viv correct, and IS that New Street with its tall buildings along from the Odeon, on the extreme left? Did Marshall and Snelgrove's building stretch a long way back from its facade in New Street and so is the NFS Water building part of that? The blank wall, centre left, looks like the start of the row of partly surviving buildings going down to the junction with Corporation Street, in which Horne's survived and Marshall and Snelgrove didn't. It all looks increasingly likely. In which case, the vantage point? A building a bit further up High Street - damaged, unscathed??

Chris
 
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Here is a photo of the Big Top 1954, which I think settles the problem, as the corner of High St and New St can be seen
bigtop1954.jpg
 
Yes, that clinches it, thanks, Mike. Looks like cranes on top of Marshalls and Snelgrove's. Remember that the facade was recreated in a style fairly similar to the original but bigger, grander but not so distinctive. Strange that the buildings in New Street opposite the site seemed to survive the blitz reasonably unscathed whilst those on the Big Top site were totally destroyed. The reconstruction of the site must have seemed like a long wait. Still just a plot of waste ground in the very centre of the city nine years after the end of the war and thirteen after the destruction.

Chris
 
The planning for the southern approaches to the city i.e. Camp Hilll, Deritend and Digbeth were on the table back as far as the early 1930's. It was not possible to do any major works until the tram routes were abandoned. A start was made with the conversion of the Coventry Road routes, to trolleybuses followed by the Stratford and Warwick Road routes a couple of years before WW2. WW2 brought a halt to these plans, the Stechford trams, which should have ceased in April 1940 continued until October 1948. As I mentioned elsewhere on this Forum much of the demolition and land clearance was delayed due to property owners not be able to be traced easily, if at all. Places like the east side of the Bull Ring and the area of New Street/High Street (discussed here as Big Top) were most likely demolished soon after their bombing due to them being unsafe. The photo of 1954, showing the Big Top area now being used as a car park makes sense. With the road widening and Bull Ring re-development, car parking spaces that were now being lost needed to be replaced albeit temporarily I believe. Moreover more there was greater and increasing car ownership at this time.

Leaving the Midlands in 1954 I have no idea when the car parking area ceased - probably when the multi-story on by the new bus station opened. Incidentally it was common practice to site emergency water tanks on bomb sites over much of the UK - after all they were usually the only places without a building in town and city centres.
 
Correct Alan. There was an NFS water tank sited there in 1943 ! Viv.
 

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I remember the 'Big Top' site when it looked like this ... but I would ... because it was 1953 when I went past it four times a week ...:)
the original is in post#209 of the 'Old Streets Pics' thread.
209-the_big_top_site__new_st_1953img740.jpg
 
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That must be the Union Passage entrance to the City Arcade, behind the dark van. I notice the C&A ground floor windows to the left of the Arcade are full of displays. Don't remember these windows or any displays on that side of the C&A building. Viv.
 
The photo in post 48 is, I suggest, after clearance of the marquees and other circus/fair infrastructure. Maybe the tow truck is removing the last one?
I see the YMCA canteen is there in both recent photos.
 
An aerial view of the Big Top site in 1949, the Times building and the Co-Op partially block the view. C&A and Union Passage visible, and a sign of the those times, most cars were painted black.
BigTop1949.jpg
image from 'britainfromabove'
And today ... the Times building is still there but the Co-Op has gone and trees in New Street.
BigTop_iOS.jpg
image from Apple maps.
 
A very graphic image of how much of the retail centre was knocked out during the War. The trees are a nice addition. Viv.
 
nice then and now phil...although it would be easier to spot what is still there

lyn
 
I do remember the view #48. I am sure that there was a mine or bomb somewhere on that corner that was used as a collection box for a war time charity. Or is that something else I have mis-remembered?
 
The photo in post 55 would seem to confirm my comments in post 46 about demolition of the unsafe structures.
The photo in post 57 has been seen here and commented upon as mentioned in the post. However, a lot of the focus seemed to centre upon the two women leaning out of the window. Maybe that is why is missed spotting the camouflage painted on the bus roof. Not sure whether all of BCT's buses got that treatment or just some that were probably repainted in the earlier part of the war. I had been of the opinion that BCT bus roofs were painted an overall dark colour but there are photos showing buses with definite camouflage design.
 
Just for reference, a 1931 aerial view showing the area which would become the Big Top site. The Times Furnishing building was not yet been built but there appears to be a space demolished for it.
Before_BigTop1931.jpg
 
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