St Pauls Church St Pauls Square

[Dolphie]

I've just returned from dear old Brum & while down there went to visit this church in St Pauls Square. We went over to find it was open between 12 & 2pm & when we went in there was a lovely man inside who gave us a tour around. It was fabulous inside & I took a fair few photos...hope you dont mind me posting a couple.

 

[claire-brum71]

Great pics dolphie, my Gt Gt grandparents were married in this church, so it's nice for me to see them, I'll be taking a copy if you don't mind, Claire

 

[Wendy]

Re: St Paul's Church

It is a beautiful church we went inside a few years ago. We were invited in by the verger, it was lovely as the church was decorated for a wedding with flowers at the end of every pew. The window really took my breath away as the sun was shining through it. I didn't realise it was painted. We also asked why there were only stained glass windows on one side of the church. The verger explained the windows were blown out in the second World War. They couldn't afford to replace them so decided to repair what they could on one side and put plain glass in the other. The Rev Doug Wilks is the vicar now and he is on the committee of 'The Friends of Key Hill Cemetery. The last time I went to St Paul's was to see Carl Chinn do a talk to raise funds for the cemetery. It was a lovely evening.

 

[Dolphie]

Please help yourself Claire, thats why I posted them in case people wanted to see/use them. The painted window is fabulous isn't it Wendy, the colours are so rich & atmospheric (what a pity I didnt think to take a snap of it!! doh). I've got some other general photos of it from outside...I'll try posting those too later on.

 

[Astoness]

hi folks...i am looking for any old black and white photos of st paul square and st pauls church in the jewellery quarter....any help on this would be great..

many thanks

lyn

 

[mikejee]

Are you looking for anything in particular Lyn?

 

[Phil]

Lyn

Will these do for a start?

 

[Astoness]

Are you looking for anything in particular Lyn?

no mike just any of the square and church before it was all spruced up...

phil thats a great start thank you...i need to choose a few that can be framed so please keep them coming..

mike it is poss to have a map of the square please showing where st pauls tavern was...or maybe its still there??

lyn

 

[Phil]

Lyn

Sorry but I think there is another error here with a wrongly named photo, the St Pauls Tavern was actually at the bottom of Ludgate Hill and is now an Italian restaurant now if I've got my bearings right.

 

[Phil]

Lyn

Take a look here under St Pauls Square,

https://epapers.bham.ac.uk/view/series/Birmingham=27s_Buildings_and_Urban_Topography.html

 

[Phil]

Lyn

Take a look here under St Pauls Square, you should find several photos.

https://epapers.bham.ac.uk/view/series/Birmingham=27s_Buildings_and_Urban_Topography.html

 

[Phil]

Lyn

I think this is the last of what I can come up with

 

[Astoness]

thanks phil those are great...love the overhead shot...will go and look at that link now..

lyn

 

[mikejee]

Lyn
Do you still want the map of St Pauls Square as the pub isn't there?

 

[Astoness]

Lyn
Do you still want the map of St Pauls Square as the pub isn't there?

yes please mike...could you also mark out on the map where the midland ropery was please as shown on one of phils photos...looks to be on a corner and that building may still be there...many thanks mike

 

[mikejee]

Here you are Lyn. A map c 1889. Also, in case they are of interest, two I took in the early 1970s. They were colour but have made them B & W as that is what you wanted.

 

[Astoness]

thanks for the map mike and the photos are great...mike looking at the map would you say that the warehouse building next to the rolling mills are numbers 15 to 20 ?? just trying to pin down where the rope walk restaurant now is and maybe find an old pic of the building which i think could be visible on phils overhead pic..actually mike looking at phil pic 2 on post 3 i am wondering if nos 15 to 20 used to be pitt and swatkins which is now the rope works restaurant...
thank you mike

lyn

 

[Astoness]

totally confused now mike...just been talking to someone who says that the rope walk restaurant at 15 to 20 st pauls square used to be a rope factory but the rope factory in this pic was as you have marked out on the map is at no 35 on the corner with caroline st i think..i will check kellys later on to see what nos 15 to 20 st pauls square used to be...either there were 2 rope factories or the rope walk restaurant was so named because it was close to the rope factory at no 35

lyn




lyn

 

[Phil]

Lyn


Yes the building that is now "The Rope Walk" at one time was a rope manufacturer, when it was owned by G.F.Mewis Rope Manufacturer. I don't think Pitt & Swatkins made rope as they were Die Sinkers. The building has had many uses over the years and at one time was even used as the Spanish & Portuguese Consulates.

 

[Astoness]

morning phil..my problem is that the building in your pic was on the corner of caroline st and st pauls square at no 35 as in mikes map and the rope walk restaurant is on the other side of the square at nos 15 to 20...i need to try and sort this one out...

thank phil

 

[Astoness]

hi phil just shown that pic of pitt and swatkins to my daughter and she said that is now the rope walk....the archway leads to the car park..

lyn

 

[Phil]

morning phil..my problem is that the building in your pic was on the corner of caroline st and st pauls square at no 35 as in mikes map and the rope walk restaurant is on the other side of the square at nos 15 to 20...i need to try and sort this one out...

thank phil

Yes Lyn, that is correct G E Mewis also had premises at 35 St Pauls Square in addition to the ones where "The Rope Walk" restaurant is now. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if they had premises elsewhere because none of the premises look large enough in length for a rope walk. If you look at this rope walk in Handsworth you will see what I mean. They used to be that long that the boss here used to ride up and down it on his horse to save his legs.

 

[Astoness]

hi phil thanks again...so G E MEWIS had the rope works at no 35 and 15 to 20...thats that sorted out then..

thanks phil..

 

[Radiorails]

This info is copied from Post No.8 of this thread. I do not believe it totally answers your question but it might well have changed when the curate Rann Kennedy, since 1797, became incumbent.

9. The church of ST. PAUL, Birmingham, was built between 1777 and 1779 (fn. 220) as a chapel of ease to St. Martin's under an Act of 1772. The site was given by Charles Colmore, who also gave £1,000 towards the cost of building, the rest of which was raised by subscription. (fn. 221) There seems to have been a perpetual curacy in existence from 1778, when a curate was presented by the trustees appointed under the Act of 1772. (fn. 222) From 1779 Charles Colmore alone seems to have acted as patron. (fn. 223) In 1817 Rann Kennedy, who had been curate since 1797, became incumbent, the congregation having purchased for him the next presentation. (fn. 224) In 1848 the patron was George B. P. Latimer, who presented himself to the living. (fn. 225) In 1868 S. S. Lloyd was named as patron, but by 1869 the patronage had passed to the trustees of St. Martin's church. (fn. 226) The annual net value of the living was said to be over £200 in 1778 (fn. 227) and £622 in 1953. (fn. 228) In 1841 a parish formed out of St. Martin's was assigned to the church, (fn. 229) and a further part of St. Martin's was added to the parish in 1900. (fn. 230) The living became a vicarage in 1868. (fn. 231) In 1947 the parishes and benefices of St. Paul, Birmingham, and St. Mark, Birmingham, were joined to form the parish and united benefice of St. Paul and St. Mark.
A map of 1810 shows buildings all around St. Paul's church. (fn. 232) By the middle of the 19th century the population of the parish was about 11,000, (fn. 233) and it had become the centre of the jewellers' quarter of the town. (fn. 234) For over 50 years Rann Kennedy (1772–1851), second master of King Edward's School, and a poet of note in his day, was associated with the parish. (fn. 235) He was described as 'one of the most able and popular preachers in Birmingham'. (fn. 236) The chapel of St. Michael and All Angels, Birmingham, in Warstone Lane, though consecrated in the 1840s was regarded as a mission chapel of St. Paul's between 1917 and 1926. (fn. 237)Cathedral House, at 71, Newhall Street, was licensed as a mission room from 1909 to 1920. (fn. 238)
The church of St. Paul, in St. Paul's Square, stands in the middle of its churchyard. It is a Classical building designed by Roger Eykyn in a style much influenced by the work of James Gibbs. (fn. 239) It consists of a rectangular nave with aisles and galleries, a square apse for the altar and a west tower with entrance lobbies to the north and south of it. (fn. 240) Internally the Venetian east window has its lights divided by Ionic shafts and flanked by square Ionic pilasters. The glass in the east window, executed by Francis Eginton in 1791 after a painting by Benjamin West, P.R.A., is one of the best surviving examples of 18th-century painted glass. (fn. 241) Above the side lights is an entablature and above this are oval wall-panels containing urns, a cornice crossing above the whole. Externally the square mullions have moulded caps and bases, and the whole is set in a round-headed recess. The nave arcades of five bays have round arches of square section carried on Ionic columns which change below the gallery level to panelled square piers with moulded caps and bases. The aisles have two ranges of windows, the lower, below the galleries, with segmental heads, the upper with half-round heads; all have rusticated quoins and voussoirs externally. There is also a west gallery. There are doorways at each end of the aisles, north and south doorways to the west lobbies, and a doorway in the west wall of the tower, all with pediments above them. The nave has an elliptical barrel-vaulted ceiling of plaster and the aisles have half-round vaults, groined to the arcades and windows. The sloping plastered soffits of the galleries are also partly groined to the lower windows. Externally the walls are of white ashlar, now blackened with grime, with projecting rusticated quoins. All round is a great bracketed cornice, and above the east and west ends are pediments, the western with an attic stage above it to take the tower. The tower was originally of one low story, square, with a round window in each side and pyramidal roof. (fn. 242) The tower had been designed to support a spire, but for want of money this was not erected until 1823. (fn. 243) The existing tower, designed by Francis Goodwin, (fn. 244) has above the west pediment and attic a cruciform stage, the cardinal faces of which contain tall round-headed windows and the diagonal faces of which are recessed and fronted by Corinthian columns. These support a cornice, above which is an octagonal bell-chamber, with a balustrade and square-headed lights. The short spire with three ranges of spire-lights is surmounted by a ball and weather-vane. The furniture of the church includes a communion rail with turned balusters, high pews with fielded panels and doors, and pews set in coved recesses in the west wall of the nave under the gallery. The organ was originally over the west gallery which has a little of the organ's casing still incorporated in its front. A new organ was built in 1838; it was moved to the east bay of the north aisle about 1927. (fn. 245) The font under the gallery is of marble and polished granite and has a stem with a white Ionic capital. There are several 19th-century monuments in the south aisle to members of the Hollins family, including a portrait bust of William Hollins, architect (d. 1843), by his son Peter Hollins; there is also a monument to the artist Joseph Barber (d. 1811). (fn. 246) There are 825 sittings in the church, but earlier estimates of accommodation are considerably higher. (fn. 247) Bomb damage in 1940 and 1941, which chipped some of the masonry and smashed window glazing, has since been repaired.
The register of baptisms and burials (the first register is kept at St. Martin's church) dates from 1779, that of marriages from 1841.

 

[MAW]

Thanks Alan,

In contemporary diaries and drawings from the 1820s-1830s, I have seen the terms chapel and church used, although chapel is more common.

Mark

 

[Vivienne14]

St Paul's Chapel as featured in William Hutton's History of Birmingham in 1809. This was before the spire was added. A little gem, grade 1 listed and set in the only remaining Georgian square in Birmingham. Does anyone have any interior photos please as those in post #1 were lost ? Viv.

 

[Key Hill Brian]

Quite by chance today, I found this pic of the interior of St Pauls, on a family tree, where one of my distant cousins was married.

 

[Key Hill Brian]

This is a framed print obtained from St Pauls many years ago - dated 1989, reproduced from a drawing made by Charles William Butterworth. Shows the church with present steeple, but after the exterior was cleaned of layers off soot & grime that it had in my youth - it used to be black, but is now a milder grey.

 

[Vivienne14]

Nice photo and print Brian. The interior photo shows it still has pews with doors - long ago rented by families. I love the simple uncluttered interior. My memory too of most old buildings of Birmingham is not one of bright and clean buildings but much greyer and grimy. Thanks Brian.

After a bit more searching I eventually found this interior image too, but don't know it's date.


Viv.

 

[anthea]

Viv, Lovely picture of the interior of the church. My mother and father were married there in 1926.

Anthea