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St Barnabas Church Erdington

Sorry Frothy...the message above just posted itself before I had finished. Anyway, the book is called
"The Public Sculptures of Birmingham including Sutton Coldfield. You can find it here:https://books.google.ca/books?id=p-...orial To fallen soldiers in Erdington&f=false
It has a photograph of the memorial at British Gas plus lots of photos of so many familiar statues and sculpture in Brum and Sutton Coldfield.
 
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jennyann said:
Hi Frothy: What does this memorial look like? Is it a wall plaque? Today I remembered my contact with Chris John(I had added an s to his surname which is incorrect). In 2002 I came across this report when I was wondering if there was a war memorial in Erdington. i contacted Chris and he said he hadn't been able to find a public War Memorial in Erdington.
It is an extensive report about the graves of soldiers, sailors and airmen who died in the two World Wars and are buried in St. Barnabas' churchyard. There are photos of some of the graves in this report. You can find it here: https://www.hellfire-corner.demon.co.uk/erdington.htm
I also found out that there is a private Memorial in Erdington located in the British Gas Club garden at Woodacre Road. This comes from a very interesting book which part of it is on line called "
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this is it. shows 27 servicemen buried there
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Frothblower said:
There is a memorial but you can't see it at the moment. It's inside the fence put around the church
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With all due respect, Frothy I’d argue this is not a public war memorial. It is in memory of the 27 men buried in the churchyard. It isn’t strictly in a public place. Although the public do have access, the church could probably restrict that access if they so chose, such as enclosing and locking the churchyard at certain times.

Also, where the Osborne Nursery School is, on the corner of Sutton New Road and Station Road, if memory serves correctly was a church with graveyard; it is reasonable to assume it was a different denomination and may well have contained graves of the fallen not named on the St Barnabas ‘memorial’.

My definition of a public memorial would be one funded by locals or local government and displayed prominently in a public place, such as Six Ways Island or The Green, naming all the fallen irrespective of religious affiliation..
 
Paul Higgins said:
With all due respect, Frothy I’d argue this is not a public war memorial. It is in memory of the 27 men buried in the churchyard. It isn’t strictly in a public place. Although the public do have access, the church could probably restrict that access if they so chose, such as enclosing and locking the churchyard at certain times.

Also, where the Osborne Nursery School is, on the corner of Sutton New Road and Station Road, if memory serves correctly was a church with graveyard; it is reasonable to assume it was a different denomination and may well have contained graves of the fallen not named on the St Barnabas ‘memorial’.

My definition of a public memorial would be one funded by locals or local government and displayed prominently in a public place, such as Six Ways Island or The Green, naming all the fallen irrespective of religious affiliation..
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Sounds like you know what your on about Paul. Who am I to argue:rolleyes:
 
Frothblower said:
Sounds like you know what your on about Paul. Who am I to argue:rolleyes:
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Frothy, as I said, I researched extensively and was unable to find an Erdington War Memorial, which I found strange. Erdington is a well established political, economic and social community and one would expect a memorial to have been erected.

During my research I came across a site (for the life of me I cannot remember which one, I trawled through so many- but it may well have been the one mentioned earlier in this thread) and the author said categorically that no war memorial had ever been erected in Erdington.

I didn’t take this at face value, with respect to the author, and continued to research on and off for several weeks, hoping to find a memorial that had been perhaps removed for whatever reason- road improvements? - and never re-erected. But no joy. I wish my old man was still alive. He’d have known straight away.

Anyway, I had to give way to superior knowledge and accept no such memorial did or ever had existed.

No doubt the memorial in St. Barnabus’ churchyard was erected in good faith. Who knows what constraints restricted it to the men who were buried there? Perhaps bye-laws, simple economics- or dare I say religious bigotry?

As for ‘who am I to argue’ you are entitled to your opinion. I must admit I expected the response to be a bit more negative! But if I have added to the debate and given reason to reconsider and in some small way contributed to the vast knowledge on this excellent site (which I really should visit more often!) I am satisfied.
 
Hi Paul: I think it must have been Christopher John's reference to there not being a public War Memorial in Erdington that you saw.
I too searched extensively in case I missed it. I only remember that on Armistice Sunday when the parades were held in Erdington that the route was usually down the High Street round Six Ways Island and along Sutton New Road and to the Village Green.
I agree it is strange that Erdington doesn't have a Cenotaph or Memorial Garden. There really should be one.
Here is Birmingham City Council site about Memorials https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/memorials and another one which lists the names of the memorials in some Birmingham churches https://www.warmemorialsbham.co.uk/2.html

Here is a Post Office Memorial site with the Erdington site at Sutton New Road https://catalogue.postalheritage.or...ltRefNo='memorials')AND((text)='Birmingham'))

I always like the Memorial close to Aston Parish Church and also the one inside the church which carries my Uncle's name. He died in WW1.
 
I haven't looked at the forum for ages but have just been checking all the postings regarding St Barnabus Erdington. We visited from Australia in 2005 to find my husbands' Grandparents and a Great Uncles' grave. We were so upset at the state of the Churchyard - just couldnt believe how bad it was - bottles, old mattresses etc.. We also were disappointed that the church was locked but could understand seeing the state of the grounds though when we heard about the terrible fire were sad we hadn't been able to see inside. Being so far away must thank 'Novice Brummie' for the link of the internal restoration and also Dave M for the photos of the work by the Military cadets.

My husbands parents were married there in 1932 (and operated a business in High Street until the early years of the war), and we are lucky to own a small original oil painting of St Barnabus when the Lych gate and the grounds looked very different. I have photos of some areas of graves etc., which I took in 2005 if anyone is interested.
 
I'm very interested.. it is amazing how many of the Memorial Stones have been removed and any pictures are invaluable.

Ian
 
Has anyone seen the latest 'clear up' taking place in the graveyard? You've seen what the amatuer vandals can do... now watch the 'official' vandals
 
Last week my main computer crashed....no connection from hard drive. My technie husband is busy with a design job and couldn't fix it yet. I had to resort to my old computer which I hadn't used in three years. I was messing around this am and had a great find. I had downloaded five years ago, from an Erdington site that is no longer in existence,photographs of the stained glass windows from St. Barnabas Church plus the magnificent wall painting that was in the church. The windows were all but one lost in the fire in 2007. At one point, several years ago, the Church had held a series of talks highlighting each window and the photos of the windows had been put online. I will get them together and post them on this thread later on. Great start to my day.
 
Jennyann, I am really looking forward to seeing your photos - How lucky that you saved them and have now found them again.:)

Polly:)
 
During WW1 Erdington was barely a crossroads hamlet but at the back of St Barnabus there is a memorial dedicated to the fallen. It is a huge shame that this church has been a magnet for drunks and louts for many years. I used to live in Church road and during my study at OU I had to go and take photgraphs of the war memorial and write about it, this was made more difficult by a drunk who kept hanging around me shouting that his mother was lying drunk on a grave!! I did manage to finish it though.
 
I finally got the photos of the stained glass windows and wall painting uploaded into my latest computer so I am able to post them. Also, the plans for the new church were finally approved by the Diocese a week or so ago so there should be some action on the rebuild now. I'll put the photos into two posts. First photo is The Litany Window which was over the main altar Two- the story of the Good Samaritan Three: Wall painting. The Lynch Gate photo snuck in but it is a good one framing the Church House, etc. across the High Street.
 
Two or three more photos of the windows: One: Children window Two: Litany Window Three: Risen Christ Four: The Widow's mite Five: The Story of Lazerus
 
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hi jenny..how tragic that all the windows have been lost..makes me weep:( but thank goodness we still have your lovely pics to look back on..thanks for posting them...

lyn
 
wend.ive just re read jennys post..she got them from 5 years back from an erdington site no longer in existance...stunning pics..

lyn
 
Thanks Lyn and Wendy. Being a regular at the church over many years I had plenty of time to study the windows in person. The Litany Window always fascinated me. Some years ago, perhaps ten.... not too sure, I found a web site called Erdington Ministeries and someone had photographed all of the stained glass windows in the church and had prepared a history of the stories portrayed in each one of the windows. These were used in presentations to groups at the church I believe. The photos were then uploaded to their site. I decided to download them myself as a record for my own use. One of the first things I did when I learned of the fire at the Church three years ago was to check the Erdington Ministeries site. Sadly, it was gone. When my computer crashed a couple of months ago I was using another computer and found the photos on there.

I'm not sure if the new church will have any stained glass windows or wall art. St. Barnabas was designed by Thomas Rickman as were the windows
according to Wikipedia. There are references to the windows on this site but no actual photos.
 
Thank you Jennyann for posting the photos. The windows are beautiful. It is so sad they were lost in the fire. I am glad the rebuild may start soon, I am looking forward to visiting the when the hoarding is removed.
Polly :)
 
Work is really moving now on St. Barnabas Church.
The tower is is being cleaned hence the scaffolding.
Concrete trucks going in today.
Sorry to say most of the graves have been removed from the front of the church.

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Glad to see things are finally moving along at St.Barnabas. I like the looks of the new building too.
 
hi guys
to my knowledge there are several graves of men whom have been buried there whom was killed in action on my last visit way back 6 months before the fire
i went there in search of my grand parents grave and i was totally shocked to find the state the grounds was with in a bad state of affairs
and i asked one gentleman whom worked there with in the church about the maitence of the grounds and he told me the council had some one to come on a period basis to only cut the grass arond these graves of the war hero s and nobody elses with in the cem
and on the subject of the fire i think it was an accident but i cannot personal say and point the finger to any one but i know the little gentle man i spoke with was smoking in and around the church building because the lady in question was not there on the evening i went inside to asked for information regarding my grand parents grave
so whilst the manager was away they was smoking with in the church but there again i do not know of any person of the humam race could do such a thing deliberately
but i will be going this week end to check the state of my grand parents grave in st barnbys astonian
 
Hi Astonian: I agree it is very distressing to visit many graveyards these days since so many of them are neglected and St. Barnabas' is no different. Hopefully, with the rebuilding now underway the whole place will be tidied up and some sort of rota written up for the future maintenance. Good luck finding your grandparents grave. The police have not arrested anyone in connection with the fire and it is best to leave it to them to carry out their investigations. Hopefully some information will be found to find out who or what caused the fire. I know it's difficult because so much of the building was destroyed.
 
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