Sorry- hit the wrong button!
I've just joined the Birmingham History Forum and I'm just finding my way around. Snow Hill station, along with the Museum of Science and Industry had a profound effect on me as a child. Probably a lot of the following has been said already- but I hope it's of interest and not too inaccurate! I wrote this a year or so back, just wanting to try and bash out some thoughts. It's a big chunk of text- hope not too much is sentimental drivel!
For me, the highlight of all my childhood explorations of the city was Snow Hill station. This wonderful building, the pride of the GWR in the West Midlands when the rebuilt station was opened in 1912 and equipped with every modern facility, became something of a legend in its latter years due to its long decline and lingering death. Magnificent in scale and Gothic in its decay the place had an immense impact on me and I believe it did in many other people. Nicholas Whittaker describes a similar encounter with Snow Hill to one of my own, in his profound and treasured book “Platform Souls”. Like him, I “just wanted to look”.
I have difficulty remembering my first encounter but I must have been eight or nine, which would have put the date at about 1971-2, not long after final closure but long enough for dereliction to have set in. I never knew the station in use so had no yardstick to measure it against, having no memories of Kings, Castles, Warships, Blue Pullman or DMU’s or any fond recollection of former glory. I never once tried to imagine the past- the crowded platforms, holiday-makers, departing Great War soldiers or even the last commuters. The nostalgia, profound and deeply ingrained at an impressionable age all comes from the awe which the sepulchral and massive place inspired and the absolute freedom to explore it.
How we first encountered the place I can’t recall but I remember sitting with my legs dangling over the platform and listening to my mum read to me from “The Model Railway Men” by Ray Pope. There were rails in front of me- there was track in-situ in both bay platform roads and the road which ran around the western side of the station- pretty weed-grown but intact. The main lines through the middle had gone and this area was partially infilled and the haunt of Allegros, Mk III Cortinas and other workhorses of the time. Much of the infrastructure was there- running-in boards, water cranes, tannoys, all the ironwork including the concertina gates to the subway- partially ajar (I think I only went down there the once). The hotel had gone by this time, although the row of Carrara marble booking windows were there, later to be broken up. I suspect that we were drawn into the station out of curiosity whilst in town.
This was the start of many visits over the next three years or so- accompanied at first and then solo or with a chum from school. This was at a time when Health and Safety had not yet become part of British culture and the huge building, labyrinthine, mouldering and inhabited only by pigeons and the homeless was totally unloved and one could wander about freely. This was also a time when child safety was still not obsessively pursued and I’m amazed at the freedom I had. After school- primary school, don’t forget- I could catch the bus from Rednal nine miles into town, cross the city through the museum quarter and into vast tracts of dereliction, through underpasses that must have been pretty scary places and enter a huge and rotting structure full of a wide variety of hazards. Death by falling, impalement, being trapped underground, Weil’s disease, rape and murder all perfectly possible and if anything had happened then, in the spirit of the time, it would have just been “unfortunate” and no parental blame would have fallen. Not that my parents weren’t caring- my mum would have been heart-broken if anything had happened- it was just how things were. But nothing did happen. I walked the platforms, scrunched through broken glass and waded through debris of all kinds in the refreshment rooms and offices. From memory there was so much for the taking- ironmongery, furniture and light fittings. I wish I’d been light-fingered and tooled up. Totems- well, possibly but I don’t remember them, although I do remember “Way out to Great Charles Street” and some of the lesser signs so they may have still been there. I believe the Snow Hill ones were a unique design. Challenged only once by authority- a constable confiscated the only souvenir I ever tried to pinch- an aluminium switch housing with big round green and red buttons that I’d taken from the North signal box- and let me go on my way!
I always felt fairly safe whilst exploring- although I never ventured into the tunnel to Moor Street or, strangely, explored the South signal box (a large and imposing, although soot-blackened and glass-less GWR one- the North box was very modern and on legs with a ladder up into its belly)- I just don’t think access to the South box was possible. I only had one incident there and that was when a mate and I set off along the track towards the tunnels to Hockley and as we approached the North box a gang of lads came down the ladder and surrounded us. These guys, from memory aged about 15 or so, looked hard and poor. The head honcho demanded inspection of the Beatties bags that we carried, having called in at the station after a visit to the New Street store and, positively pleading for a thorough bashing, I explained the contents (from memory some cardboard building kits and bags of lichen or some such) and our presence on his turf in words such as “We’re Railway Enthusiasts. It’s our hobby”. This cheery scamp repeated “Rail..way En…thoooo…siasts” and explained that we’d better be jolly careful as HIS hobby was mugging little boys. They had a splendid laugh at our obvious discomfort and turned and headed for the station and, much relieved, my chum and I continued towards the cutting and tunnels. I think I got the traditional clip around the ear the policeman failed to administer. We made our way eventually to Hockley (just platforms by then), found our way off railway premises via some torn chain-link fence or other and back to town through the Soho backstreets.
I remember Snow Hill for its silence. There must have been a roar of traffic- possibly muted- but it has to have been there, along with parking cars and shoppers coming and going- but I don’t recall it. The silence especially noticeable in the cuttings heading north, where there were also the scents of Wormwood and Rosebay-Willowherb. These still trigger the old memories, especially when walking the dogs in the Napoleonic brick canyons of Dover’s Western Heights that, apart from the absence of rails, resemble the urban railway cuttings of Birmingham. I dream of the place occasionally still.
The new station, which sits on the old footprint, is truly awful.
ok moan over 
Happy, happy days!!
