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Metropole Theatre Queens Theatre Snow Hill

Heartland

master brummie
There is a a thread on the Snow Hill post that mentions the Metropole, bombed in 1941 and was then demolished. I only recall the YCMA being on this spot.

This building was constructed alongside the towpath of the BCN, and as stated in the Snow Hill Thread had two previous names. It was built as a Music Hall, but the owner also wanted a Theatre Licence, but that was refused by the licensing authorities. W R Inshaw the owner had expended a considerable sum, £15,000, on getting the music hall built. He called it the New Star and it had mirrors that lined the walls. There seems to have been a lack of clientelle and the music hall was closed. Inshaw was bankrupted, but Andrew Melville took over the debts, and spent money on a reconstruction and reopened the hall as Theatre, calling it the New Queens, and later Queens Theatre. About the time Melville died, the theatre became the Metropole.

Previous to the making of the Music Hall, the earlier properties had other uses. For a long time the site there and on the other side of the canal was the Phoenix Foundry carried on by George Jones, iron founder, before he transferred his business to Lionel Street.

For Inshaw to spend such money on the new Music Hall, architects fees were quite high suggesting it was a building of a special design . Are there any images that show it?
 
Was a major task to demolish the Theatre. Sounds like the original theatre walls were kept but with a new front elevation. Source: British Newspaper Archive. Viv.

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When the Theatre (as Queens Theatre) was used for circus performances - with a 41ft diameter circus ring. Viv.

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A couple more snippets.

On 18/1/1887 the Theatre was known as the Queens Theatre and Opera House (source: Birmingham Daily Post, British Newspaper Archive)

In 1898 Mrs Melville seems to have been the proprietor. With regard to the adjoining land, the buildings both sides of the YMCA Snow Hill still stand today, with very little space between them and the YMCA. If the Theatre was extended it must have been by a fairly small amount. Maybe it was the land on which the single storey cafe stands in the second image of post # 2. Then when the YMCA new frontage was built, perhaps it absorbed this building/space. Viv.
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Well that is quite useful in explaining the changing nature of the site. The uncovering of Newhall Brook confirms that it passed under the former theatre site.
 
The Music Hall venture cost of construction is probably explained by the elaborate façade of the later theatre. Credit for this is probably due in part to the original manager, William Richard Inshaw (1860-1919). He was the son of a very talented engineer, John Inshaw.

William R Inshaw appears as manager of the Steam Clock Music Hall in the 1881 Census:1881 Morville St.jpg

The Steam Clock had begun as a public house, where John Inshaw devised a method of using condensing steam droplets to operate the clock. John Inshaw was associated with steam powered canal craft and operated a packet boat between Birmingham & Wolverhampton in the 1840's. He built steam powered tugs for the waterways and also had an interest in early railway locomotives.

For William his chosen profession was that of a concert/ music hall manager, and as noted the expense of making the Snow Hill music hall brought him to bankruptcy. He left England later, and settled in Pennsylvania, America and dying in New York in 1919. He is buried Greenwood Cemetary
 
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