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City Centre Photographs

I love these high Victorian photo's mainly "bowlers" but some "brown derby's" and 90% of men wear some form
of head gear.
paul
 
Excellent aerial view. Don't know the date, but would have been before the colonade by the Hall of Memory was removed to Peace Gardens. Viv.
 
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The Temperence Hotel, I did post a picture of this many months ago but it must have been a different photo because I have no information at all with this one and I know there was a short paragraph with the other one.
 

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Hi stitcher
What a coinsidence, i have just posted on the Bull Ring thread.
if you type in the search box the bull ring, it is on the second page.

Stars
 
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Not really a stunning picture but it is interesting. St. Philip's, built in 1709-15 by Joseph Pedley of Wawick using stone from Umberslade. This was the first major commission of the architect Thomas Archer, who had travelled extensively on the continent some 20 years earlier. It is described as 'a sophisticated and elegant building... a most subtle example of the elusive English Baroque'.
 
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This one is an old postcard, I am amazed at how tranquil it all seems.
 
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I have no information with this one but I am sure I have anothe image taken from a different angle but I can't put my hands on it just now. Any information will be much appreciated and it would save me from editing when and if I find the information to go with it.
stitcher.
 
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Stitcher. i have another copy of the photo with a caption that states it was c 1880, and that the foundation stone was laid 13th june 1874, and first council meeting 9th Nov, 1878
 
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This is a watercolour by Charles Rudd 1845, showing pedestrians and horse drwn cabs. Christ Church was completed in 1814 and was at the top of New Street.
 
Interesting that there's a raised pavement on the left side of the drawing Stitcher. This must have been levelled when those buildings were demolished. This is what Edwards said about it in his "Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men " in 1877:

"From the Town Hall to Easy Row the pathway was three or four feet higher than the road, and an ugly iron fence was there, to prevent passengers from tumbling over. On this elevated walk stood the offices of a celebrated character, "Old" - for I never heard him called by any other name - "Old Spurrier," the hard, unbending, crafty lawyer, who, being permanently retained by the Mint to prosecute all coiners in the district, had a busy time of it, and gained for himself a large fortune and an evil reputation".

A very interesting and busy view. Viv.
 
Very interesting, I do not know where you and some of the others get your information from Vivienne, I have plenty of photos and pictures but very little information with most of them. I will continue to post the pictures and what text I have with them and depend on you and the others for the details.
stitcher.
 
Hi Stitcher. I love to dig around for info. Those who post photos do a superb job because it inspires people to comment and that way we find out all sorts of things. So it's a joint effort. I'll happily dig around for details, so do keep them coming. And many thanks. Viv.
 
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The Town Hall about 1860, looking towards the curved facade of The Midland Institute, built in 1856 on Pradise Row. On the left is the original Queen's College built 1843-1844. At the end of the Row is the Birmingham Canal Navigation Company's office which was built in 1772.
 

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Hello Lynne, you may have read previously that I am having a sort out and going through loads of pictures magazines and books. I did not realise I had so much material. I suppose that is what happens when you have a spare room. It is amazing how many bits of paper you can get into a large envelope or a briefcase. I do make a few mistakes but that is because I am doing the forum thing while I am sewing and all the time I am copying my old cassettes onto the computer external hard drive, then choosing what I want and making a C.D. or two. Then I clean the hard drive and start again but it will all get done eventually. I know it may seem a little morbid but I am sorting my stuff out so that if something happens to me my wife or son will not have to do it. I am not expecting to go any time soon and I feel great but it needs doing so I will carry on with it all.
 
Hello Stitcher, you cant go anywhere till you have done every last pic or bit of info, by the way, I didnt think men could multi task. Well done.
Lynne.
 
It keeps me out of trouble while the weather is too bad for gardening.
 
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1964 again, and we are looking past the old church of St. Catherine of Sienna on the Horsefair, up Suffolk Street Queensway towards the the old Central Library sandwiched between the Town Hall and Baskerville House. The church was replaced that year by a new circular building further down Bristol Street.
 
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Paradise Street, looking past the Midland Institute towards the Town Hall in 1938.
 
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The Arden Hotel, New Street 1908. It closed for demolition in 1972.
 
What a magnificent building Stitcher. No wonder Brum has lost all it's character, when you look at what has replaced these places.
 
Yes Maggs, magnificent as you say. There must surely have been a way that some these buildings could have been preserved rather than demolish them all.
 
Of course there was Stitcher, but they just didn't think did they? Brum has become the most unrecogniseable city in the UK for us who were born and grew up there. I think what they did to that city is unforgiveable.
 
Never mind Maggs, we will never be able to alter things because not enough people care any longer.
If you are of a similar age to myself, we have had the very best neighbours and communities, the very best music and night club scene, the very best employment and the very best of anything else you would like to mention.
 
I think the answer to the question 'why?' lies in the fact that the demolition was done post-war. The war years meant austerity and anything old represented pre-war and so lots of magnificent buildings all over the country got 'lost'. It's a great shame, because Birmingham, and other cities too, have lost their original identity. Just after the war, many stately homes were demolished (and many prior to that too), and I think the re-building of a new Britain meant that new ideas were tried out (to the disappointment of many). I have never understood why a new building to replace an old one could not be built in a way that was sympothetic to the surrounding buildings - and I have to add Selfridges and the new Bullring (Ugh, it should be Bull Ring) to the list of unsympathetic buildings. In the main Lichfield has built sympathetically, at least recently they have, and places like Bath and even Cheltenham has preserved much of its past, but Birmingham (like Tamworth) did not bother with that. I think that sometimes Councillors are so impressed with themselves that the design of new buildings are passed by the Council in order that that particular Councillor can make his stamp on the city. I might be being a bit of a dinosaur here, but I am sure that I am not far from wrong in many cases. Bring the old back and I would be most delighted!
 
Some of the planners who destroyed so much of our city,did almost has much damage to buildings as Adolph Hitler.However, like him, they couldn't destroy what we think.
Great photo's Stitch...
 
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