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Deritend Library Heath Mill Lane

JKC

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I was waiting for the traffic lights to turn green last night by the Old Crown in digbeth....while waiting I took a look a the building across the road (Heath Mill Lane)....and in all the years that I have drove past this building I have never noticed that it was a Library? or used to be?....above the door way it states (Free Library)...? just goes to show how blind some of us are......
 
John just scanned a small piece from my book which was published in 1863 Memorials of Old Birmingham The Old Crown House....everytime I stop at the traffic lights outside the Old Crown I look at that Entrance ...I would love to see inside.......I might take the bull by the horns and ask in the Bank next door who owns it
 
I worked for Eskimo Frozen Foods who were in Heath Mill Lane from 1960 till 1964 and I never noticed it I always came in from Fazley St way and and turned out to the left towards Coventry Road to visit my customers. Why????
 
Well I never.

John,after living up here for nearly 30 years, and driving through a town called, Dalry most days, it was just a couple of years ago that after being drawn to a halt in the car one day, that I happened to look around, as normally I would drive through at 30 MPH, and I noticed for the first time, a little church just about 6 feet away from the pavement, with a few trees in front of it. As I say, I drive past this thousands of times, but until that day I never knew of its existence. We obviously go around with our eyes shut some times, dont we ?
 
I think this was one of the first five free public libraries in Birmingham. It was the third to open and it did so on 26th October 1866. The library had re-opened in 1898 after enlargement. Deritend Library closed in 1940. In 2003 it was opened as a conference centre and exhibition space. It is the only building of the original five free Birmingham libraries still standing.
 
Coming up to the Old Crown I took this pic and one as I stopped at the traffic lights in my car
 
Yes. It was opened on 26th October 1866, on the same day as the Foundation stone for the Gosta Green library was laid. The cost of the building was £1140 plus and cost heating apparatus (£68.18s) plus of course books etc
 
Buildings all part of the Custard Factory now.

Former Public Library of 1866 by Bateman & Corser. A very ecclesiastical Gothic design. Red brick with a little blue diapering, stone dressings and three-light Perp windows. Two gables to the street, the taller with two steps interrupted by a brick rectangle, rebuilt during repairs of 2003 by Bryant Priest Newman. Inside, four-centred-arched arcades, also Perp, and a complex roof.

From Pesvner Architectural Guides: Birmingham by Andy Foster
 
It did strike me as a church or chapel in the first instance. It is a nice building and hopefully, as it is part of the custard factory, it has a future.
 
It’s the oldest surviving library in Birmingham.

Interior views of how it was and how it is today; a well preserved, useable space for functions. Viv.

B826E1D2-17FB-49D6-BA0C-15238D074553.jpegD658A673-7B9D-48CF-B0FF-6AEA6FD9D031.jpeg
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Two more interior views from Shoothill. Note a "reserved" table! A time when libraries were places of serious study, "quiet please" and, more often than not, with a stern head librarian in charge. Viv.

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In the early 1950's I attended St Anne's RC School, Allcock Street, Digbeth. I walked past this building every morning and afternoon, to and from school to home, it had long since closed as a Library, but a part of the building, if I remember correctly the door to the left, was used by a basket maker, many of which were at that time still in demand by Bull Ring Market traders.

This basket maker was an elderly blind man and in the warmer weather he would sit outside the door on the pavement in Heath Mill Lane making his baskets for all to see.

Although I never spoke to him, I watched how he worked and I was always taken by how quickly he weaved the reeds to make the baskets, a skill I am sure that is long since lost.

Does anyone else remember this man.

Smiler
 
Entrance to The Old Library from Gibb Street at the Custard Factory. View from February 2018. This end is more to do with Zellig.



October 2009 view of The Old Library from Heath Mill Lane.

 
In the early 1950's I attended St Anne's RC School, Allcock Street, Digbeth. I walked past this building every morning and afternoon, to and from school to home, it had long since closed as a Library, but a part of the building, if I remember correctly the door to the left, was used by a basket maker, many of which were at that time still in demand by Bull Ring Market traders.

This basket maker was an elderly blind man and in the warmer weather he would sit outside the door on the pavement in Heath Mill Lane making his baskets for all to see.

Although I never spoke to him, I watched how he worked and I was always taken by how quickly he weaved the reeds to make the baskets, a skill I am sure that is long since lost.

Does anyone else remember this man.

Smiler
The skill still exists in rural areas such as The Fens and Somerset and one or two other areas where willow/withies grow.
 
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