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Paradise Street

Fine inclusion Exile. Amazing artistry and draughtsmanship. You can just pick out through the smoke the Worcester Street entance to the old fish market and St. Martins. This picture with the three others from just below this vantage are a super record of the place over the years. You can see the architects effort to blend the art gallery in with the Greek Style of the Town Hall; in the portico facing just next to the clock tower.
 
Here is another link from a collection that you have just been looking at : https://www.bmagic.org.uk/objects/1937P369/images/136174

It shows Paradise St from probably the entrance to Christ Church looking towards the old wharf offices which are hidden from view. Ann St is between this spot and the Town Hall at that time and the building on the corner looks to be in good nick then.
 
Great old print. If you look at the part of the canal that led to the twin wharfes, it goes under Bridge St. at the bottom of the picture. Then just to the left of the bridge over this canal was the second Cadbury's Factory. and I wonder if chocolate ingredients were off loaded there. Cadbury's had their own boats.
 
Rupert
Cadbury's certainly had their own boats in the early twentieth century, nainly used fro carrying chocolate crumb and milk ingredients from the milk factories to the chocolate plants , and the attached shows one of them, but I'm not sure that they had their own while they were at Bridge street.
mike

boats_carrying_milk_to_bournvilleA.jpg
 
Thanks, Rupert & Mike.
Showell's Dictionary (thanks Maggie) tells us that in Dec 1854 Charles Dickens "gave 3 readings in the Town Hall on behalf of the building fund [ for the Midlands Institute] whereby £227 13 9d was raised". The higher footpath in Paradise St that you mentioned, Mike, was on the Town Hall side according to Showell & had iron railings.
 
Thanks, Rupert. I think post 2 shows it well. Eliezer Edwards in Personal Recollection of Birmingham & Birmingham Men refers to the railings as ugly, but I would not go that far. I have more books on order & I am hoping for more pictures.
 
This picture is also on The Canals Of birmingham thread but it pertains to this thread too. One of the great shots here I think. Taken from a building on Bridge Street ...the vantage point seems to be too high to be from the bridge. Anyway it may be from the window of a school there and that may have been the chocholate factory before. Only a guess, don't know exactly where the factory was on the street. You can see Christ Church in the distance and the entry to Paradise St. and the back of the old canal office. There are people on here but I don't think that the early camera could capture movement.

Photo 1890 ish maybe just prior to the demolition of the church.
 
Rupert
None of the directories from the period of Cadburys occupancy of Bridge St are detailed as to the position of buildings in the street, but they do all list Cadburys as the first firm on the list coming from broad St, which would indicate to me that it was very close to broad st, and so I think it improbable that the school was the original factory.
Mike
 
Hi,i wonder if Mikejee can help me.In the picture shown on post#44 you can see a Mitchells & Butlers pub.
This pub would have been on Easy Row,is it The Woodman or was that further down Easy Row on the opposite side of the road?
Moss.
 
Hi mossg

Comparing it to this photo of the frontage of the Woodman, I would say its certainly the Woodman.

Phil

WoodmanFrontage1952.jpg
 
Nicely spotted Moss & well found, Phil.
Paradise St 1880. The perpective is off, but at least we get to see buildings new to us.
 
Writing of Paradise St & the Town Hall as it appeared in 1832, Robert Kirkup Dent in his book Old & New Birmingham Section 3, reports "..as we walk along in the front of the site, namely, that the low roofed houses in Paradise St come close up to the hall, so that when finished it will not be seen to the best advantage from this point of view". Certainly the modest building shown in post 50 looks incongruous against the Town Hall.
 
I think that the date of the previous sketch should be questioned. It shows your railing but surely the rounded corner of the Midland Institute building should have been present by 1880. I am not sure when that lost building was put up and fire was involved at the library end but 1865 was mentioned.
 
Thanks for that, Rupert. Yes, the date was niggling me & I am always keen that corrections should be made. I have altered the text, but am unable to change the title of the pic itself on the forum. The engraving came from Robert Dent's 1880 book & most of the pictures looked as though they are the same style, so it would be interesting to know Dent's derivation. He merely states they are from "the most authentic sources".
 
Richie,
Post 48 is definately "The Woodman",...went in the day it closed down.

Oops ! I looked at the wrong post No.
 
That find is an absolute treasure, Richie. Thank you for sharing the link. How sad to lose such a beautifull pub. I do hope that the pictures of Birmingham & Digbeth were saved & are safe somewhere - I have not seen their like before.
 
what a magnificent pub the woodman was...just a pity others did not see it that way

lyn
 
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BordesleyExile said:
That find is an absolute treasure, Richie. Thank you for sharing the link. How sad to lose such a beautifull pub. I do hope that the pictures of Birmingham & Digbeth were saved & are safe somewhere - I have not seen their like before.
Click to expand...

I remember someone posting-in 2008 it might have been-a large size photo of the Easy Row/Broad Street roundabout as it was in the 1950's. The Woodman may well have featured on it too. It depends what the caption to the photo was as to where its filed...
 
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