• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team
  • HI folks the server that hosts the site completely died including the Hdd's and backups.
    Luckily i create an offsite backup once a week! this has now been restored so we have lost a few days posts.
    im still fixing things at the moment so bear with me and im still working on all images 90% are fine the others im working on now
    we are now using a backup solution

Subways

P

philbee

birmingham born and bred
hi all
just finished watching the grand prix (good result for lewis and jenson) but what i want to know is does anyone remember the carpark entrance that you used to use coming up digbeth and went under ground to the car park on the right above the outrigger pub i ask this question after seeing the pit exit at abu dabi race circuit , used once or twice but not at the speeds they were exiting!
when was it last used ?
phil
 
philbee said:
hi all
just finished watching the grand prix (good result for lewis and jenson) but what i want to know is does anyone remember the carpark entrance that you used to use coming up digbeth and went under ground to the car park on the right above the outrigger pub i ask this question after seeing the pit exit at abu dabi race circuit , used once or twice but not at the speeds they were exiting!
when was it last used ?

It,s not there any more long gone when the new Bull Ring was rebuilt I have seen photos on this forum but they would be lost when we were hacked. Dek
Click to expand...
 
I remember the car park well, I think you came out in Park St or Rd, where the pub was on the corner, don't know if its still there
 
Liz, that's right, but all looks very different now! Used to avoid using the subway as it was dark and there was usually a vagrant in there, harmless I'm sure but worrying for a young woman alone!
 
Good news, bad news, first the good news, Some where in my collection I have a photo of the road that led to the car park it is a shot of a Midland Red D9 on the X92 in the rain (early 1980,s) now for the bad new I cannot find the photo so will have another look, it may well be on a film wot I shot (sorry) the film was shot from the top of the car park in the snow, at one point I point the camera down towards Digbeth, to see the buses struggling to get past St Martins, I must try to see if I can find it, now where did I put my collection,


philbee said:
hi all
just finished watching the grand prix (good result for lewis and jenson) but what i want to know is does anyone remember the carpark entrance that you used to use coming up digbeth and went under ground to the car park on the right above the outrigger pub i ask this question after seeing the pit exit at abu dabi race circuit , used once or twice but not at the speeds they were exiting!
when was it last used ?
phil
Click to expand...
 
I suspect that the entrance to the old car park is not that far from the new entrance to the (new) car park, I must try to find the footage shot from the same spot at the top of the car park, the3 down side is that the quality is not that great
 
Most City Centre subways of the 1960s have been filled in. These became a necessary part of the Ring Road system. But they weren't just pedestrian subways like those in the suburbs. The City Centre ones had shops, seating and wall murals. They weren't just a place to access different sides of the road. Now these have almost all disappeared. Viv.
image.jpeg
Smallbrook Queensway

image.jpeg
Subway below Rotunda at New Street and High Street junction.

image.jpeg
Colmore Circus.

Viv.
 
There was an escalator down to the one in the second picture but it didn't work very well.
I seem remember watching the Investiture of Prince Charles on a television in a shop window in that subway!!
It was a handy way to reach the Bull Ring. My friend's mother used to work in the tiny little shoe shop which is just behind the Queen.
rosie.
 
cant be certain but i seem to recall a pub under the colmore subway called the brown derby or something like that...could be my memory playing up though lol

lyn
 
no its not your memory lynn, but bang on yet again,as always
i only went there three times to meet some one, I personaly found it vert sparce inside
it was most certainly not my cup of tea thou
 
 
of the escalator up to New Street that was previously mentioned and yes it did spend a lot of the time broken down, but didn't I read it was one of the first to be used outside?
 

Attachments

  • City New St Escalator 1979 .jpg
    City New St Escalator 1979 .jpg
    169.8 KB · Views: 57
When this subway under Smallbrook Ringway on Hurst St / Hill St was built at that time it must have been one of the biggest in Birmingham.
 

Attachments

  • City Hurst St - Smallbrook Ringway Subway.JPG
    City Hurst St - Smallbrook Ringway Subway.JPG
    102.2 KB · Views: 96
  • City Hurst St - Hill St subway.JPG
    City Hurst St - Hill St subway.JPG
    109.4 KB · Views: 97
  • City Hurst St Subway .jpg
    City Hurst St Subway .jpg
    70.4 KB · Views: 94
I remember the Colmore Circus subway very well and passed this mosaic every day when I worked in Steelhouse Lane. But I never worked out that it was a tribute to Boulton, Watt and Murdoch. Image from the Shoothill site. Viv.

image.jpeg
 
Don't know the official title of these two subways, but I think maybe the first is "Smallbrook" perhaps? image.jpegimage.jpeg
 
I do wonder if one of the reasons the subways have been filled in is that, unless they are in a busy area they tend to become run down and dirty and not particularly welcoming to walk through. If I remember rightly, this is what happened to some of them - I would have rather risked crossing the road than going through at night!
 
they may have been ok back in the day but i now avoid subways at all costs if i can day and night..they are dangerous...smelly and dirty due to being used as toilets..nice little haven for muggers.. drug users and drinkers...the one near the old uni in perry barr was filled in recently but the other one in between the island at perry barr and the old uni is still open and a place to avoid...i no longer use it but go over the top to the other side now...of course going this way is impossible for wheelchair users and prams as it involves lots of steps
 
Last edited:
The Colmore Circus underpass has a self service Chinese restaurant. Only a choice of four dishes but the first place I experienced Chinese food.

I used to go to night school at the university at Perry Barr. I used the subway only once and after that I always walked round the roundabout at road level to catch the no. 11A bus in Wellington Road.
 
Astoness said:
they may have been ok back in the day but i now avoid subways at all costs if i can day and night..they are dangerous...smelly and dirty due to being used as toilets..nice little haven for muggers.. drug users and drinkers...the one near the old uni in perry barr was filled in recently but the other one in between the island at perry barr and the old uni is still open and a place to avoid...i no longer use it but go over the top to the other side now...of course going this way is impossible for wheelchair users and prams as it involves lots of steps
Click to expand...

Yes, that's a terrible one!!
I remember when it was first put there when they did the underpass and I didn't like it much to start with!
 
Had forgotten how utterly soulless this underpass at the junction of Corporation and Bull Street was. This was it in 2000. From Birmingham Mail archives. Viv.

image.jpeg
 
As a young boy, I watched the subways being built. To great excitement I would add. It was a promise of a dream, a modern almost space age city where we were separated from all the noisy polluting traffic, and free to go just where we pleased.

Sometimes crossing the road meant that you took your life into you own hands, and pedestrian traffic lights rarely seemed to work. Of course, as things got completed and the subways were put into practical use, the reality of the subway practicality became apparent.

My recollections were how far extra we had to walk, just to get across the road. Some of the subway routs just seems to go for miles out of your way. It certainly seems that way, with the mundane nature of the subways. I started to miss the fun of crossing the road, the crush at the lights, then legging it across and dodging the onslaught of traffic.

The subways, through lack of maintenance, started to look grim. No lighting, tiles missing and not replaced, and the water ingress almost became a barrier to welcome the pedestrian.

A scheme that on the surface of it seemed well intended, but from a human perspective, utterly impractical.
 
When the Walsall Road was converted to dual carriageway they decided to build pedestrian subways and even demolished houses to facilitate this. They did build some smaller replacement houses facing the subways with much shorter back gardens. Soon people stopped using the subways and they were eventually closed and filled in.
oldMohawk said:
That's an interesting 1939 view of what the Walsall Rd would look like when finished. The image below shows what it eventually looked like but it was the late 1960s before work started and was finished. As mentioned in the 1939 article some trees were planted on the central reservation but the pedestrian 'subways' caused problems with some houses having to be demolished to make way for walkway ramps. Replacement houses were built set back from the road as can be seen in the left of the image but not many people used the subways and they have probably been filled in.
index.php
Click to expand...
 
it must take an enormous amount of arrogance to to design and build something and name it after yourself. I would think that the so-very-flawed Manzoni must be one of the few to have done so (though I stand to be corrected). At any rate he showed that arrogance in his Manzoni Gardens, and also in the design of th esubways, with little real consideration of the real needs of people ot of its shelf life, but his only consderation being that the design should look "pretty" on paper and follow some peculiar fad being followed ta that time by the architect profession. Not sure if he had anything to do with the 1960s library, but it would certainly fit into the same pattern
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top