The Victoria Law Courts must be as outstanding architecturally as the Town Hall - more so, perhaps, because they were designed for their purpose, whereas the Town Hall was really a copy of a Roman Temple. Yes, the Law Courts are as fine as St Pancras Hotel and Prudential Assurance buildings in London and Waterhouse's Manchester Town Hall. But some of the remaining Victorian school buildings in Birmingham are wonderful places, too.
In reply to Jennyann's post about the tram stops. They remained in use until the last tram ran out to Erdington about 10.45 am on Saturday. I seem to remember that, whereas the trams just reversed at the terminus by the Gaumont picture house, the buses had to turn a loop via Loveday St, and then turned into Steelhouse Lane out of either Weaman St of Whittall St - I can't remember which. They started to run from 11.00 am on that day.
Now a bit of trivia about Ruth Ellis. After I moved to London in 1959, I lived for several months in a lovely bed-sit near Hampstead Heath, and my local pub was the Magdala. Not that I ever used it, as I was desperately saving money to get married the following Easter, but I did sense that it had a bad 'buzz' about it, from the way people talked about it. A few years ago I did a tour with a group from the Pub History Society, and we visited this place, which is still quite a nice pub, and we were shown the shrapnel marks where poor Ruth Ellis shot her ex-lover outside the front door. I never knew that when I lived so close, and only four years after the event.
Peter
Peter