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Where is This? 180

Found this in Lower Loveday Street, ( Kelly's 1904 )
I have rechecked the spelling and it does say (People's Hill works.)

Gill JamesWilliam,printer
(People's Hill works)
here is Princip st ..
here is Cliveland s
 
...... but surely only the name lived on.
If it had survived into the '60s, isn't it impossible that our hawk-eyed, knowledgeable, well-read members in their mid- or late fifties would remember such an impressive building - if only because of its similarity to our Town Hall - without mentioning our senior members who have shown repeatedly in umpteen threads to possess a cast-iron memory. I reckon the People's Hall was no more at least by the late '30s, otherwise our octogenarians would recall it. David
 
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It's an intriguing quandary isn't it.

The address given for Gill's the printers should definitely be "People's Hall". Those are the folks who were at that address right through to the 1960's (latterly Jenner & Gill)

But I have to say I had wondered if somewhere along the line the old building was demolished and the name was passed over to a new building.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm!!

I don't think I would bet the housekeeping either way.

Despite the similarity to the Town Hall I wonder if it might have just looked like a disused church building or somesuch and therefore not particularly out of the ordinary.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm!!

Oh well - fingers crossed someone will see this thread who knew that area in the 1950's or 1960's.

Meanwhile - wondering if the library will have any old photos of Lower Loveday Street. I can at least ask the question next time I am in there.

I had promised myself no new research projects for a while - but have to admit I'm a sucker for this kind of mystery!!

MB
 
must say this thread is turning out to be most interesting.....if someone else does not beat me to it i think it would be an idea to see what building is now on the corner of lower loveday and princip streets. as it may help to work out when the hall was demolished..i am popping to the 6th floor central library tomorrow on another matter but will search for any more info...

lyn
 
hi dek.... with ref to your post about the fire station...if you go to the fire service thread and click on central fire station inside pics it was suggested last year that this would be a perfect venue for a museum and a petition was signed...we can only pray that the building is not demolished...

lyn
 
Lyn

I just tried Google Earth to see what is now on the corner of Lower Loveday Street and Princip Street.

It's a bit unclear but the whole of that general area seems to be modern industrial buildings.

If I can make it into the Centrral Library this evening I will take a look at some of the old Ordnance Survey maps. See if they give a proper "footprint" for that location and if there is any obvious change of the building on that spot..

I'll report back anything I do or find - to save you going over the same ground.

T
 
Here is a map from about 1890,it shows Peoples Hall works on the corner of Princip St and Loveday St.
The next corner down from The Bulls Head. Moss.
 

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Thanks M

Very interesting.

Unfortunately the map doesn't show the detailed footprint of the building but I am guessing it is still the original one at that date.

It appears to be such a substantial building that I can't imagine they would have demolished it just for the fun of it.

But who knows - stranger things have happened.

I'll keep digging - the answer's out there somewhere!!

T
 
Hi All,

I do not claim to have a cast iron memory, in fact, exactly the opposite. However, from 1962 to 1964 I was a sergeant at Steelhouse Lane Police Station which also covered Bridge Street West. I must have walked up Loveday Street between the two stations hundreds of times (It was before panda cars).
I cannot recollect ever seeing The Peoples Hall although the town hall is stamped into my memory.

I stand to be corrected but think that the Peoples Hall must have been demolished before 1962.

Old Boy
 
thanks T i shall look forward to anymore info you can uncover and report back if i find out anything tomorrow at the library...

over and out...

lyn
 
The Peoples Hall back then was a lofty idea that, for all of the talk, finally transpired into a modest building that only lasted three years and had to be sold because of lack of interest. What would the purpose of such a venue be today. I suspect that few care enough to move away from the tele. Make the area a green belt with trees and lawns and maybe an outside bandstand that could provide a venue for the birmingham symphony on occasion in the summer or concerts. An amphitheater even. The fire station has served it's purpose let it go.
 
Looking on Google Street scene, the building on the corner of Lower Loveday St/Princip St certainly looks as if it pre-dates the 1960s, however the building on the other corner Lower Loveday St/Shadwell St certainly looks a later building. Does this help ? Max


Additional info The older building number 38 has old lettering above the door: B.C.M.B.P,
 
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Well - I just got back from another session in the Central Library and I am now quite confident that Rupert is correct in his post above - i.e. that the building as pictured at the beginning of this thread never was built at all.

In the library index I found references to two pictures of the People's Hall but unfortunately by then the Archive section was closed so I couldn't actually view them. They may in fact just be the same as the picture at the beginning of this thread but I will check that out for definite before the end of the week.

In the meantime I looked at a couple of the Ordnance Survey maps of the area. They both named the building as the "People's Hall Works" but neither seemed to have quite the footprint I would have expected from the Town Hall lookalike building.

So time for one more roll of the dice - which was to check an index for the "Notes & Queries" columns that ran for many years in various Birmingham newspapers. I was hoping that the building might have got a mention in there which indeed it did. A question about the building had been asked on two occasions.

The answer to the first one gave pretty much the same information as contained in the "Lost Buildings" book.

But the second answer was much more revealing. The correspondent wrote:

For reasons unknown to me a very inferior building was raised and the original ambitious schemes must have been abandoned. Evidently the money could not be raised, so the original plans had to be altered, baths and other valuable requirements omitted and a wretched apology for what was intended erected in its stead.
Click to expand...
This was written in 1899, so less than 60 years after the build date.

I will keep my fingers crossed that one of those two pictures in the Library Archive does show the building that was actually erected - and report back.

Max. I should have said that the final thing I did this evening was to go via Loveday/Princip Street on the way home. The building that is now on the corner where the People's Hall used to be is in fact a fairly modern building. It could be less than 10 years old. And yet the building on the opposite corner almost certainly dates back to the 19th century.

I am still intrigued to see what the People's Hall building that actually got built DID look like.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed thus far.

I will be back at least one more time.

T
 
This is a fascinating story. I find it frustrating because I must have travelled literally hundreds of times on the 5 and 107 bus services before they were diverted away from Loveday Street in the 1950s, and I should have some memory of that building on the corner of Lower Loveday Street and Princip Street. I think there were traffic lights there to add gto the delay. If it had been at all similar to Hansom's Town Hall (which was of course built over 10 years earlier) I am sure I would have noticed it. I wonder if they filled up the spaces between the outside columns and knocked down the inner walls to increase the volume of the building. I must scrape through the bottom of the archives to see if I can find a picture of what the building was like in its last years.
Peter
 
Peter

I think our posts crossed here.

I had been thinking much the same as you i.e. that maybe they altered the external appearance of the original building.

But I am now as convinced as I can be that they never built that original building in the first place.

T
 
The modernish building is on the corner of Shadwell/Lower Loveday Streets, does this have any bearing on locating the Exact place the building stood?,surely it does i would think. Max
 
It is interesting though that the picture of the building in the original post is obviously an artists drawing and not a photograph, i would have thought as you guys are saying that it was never built !! surely there would be photographs of such a building . Max
 
I wonder if Maxwell has not found the hall..Keatley. The building looks like it was modified from something else and if it is the old hall, the columns have gone. There are the same number of windows down the side (coincidence or what) and I think that the side columns were faux columns anyway. I thought that the building was on the opposite side of Loveday though. The dimensions are about right if you consider the loss of columns and portico. So maybe it became St Chads RC School and the remains are still there to be seen.
 
hi T...well phil certainly has thrown us up a mystery all right...as peter has said if the hall had been there in the 50s and 60s surley someone on the forum would have noticed it...rupert could well be right with his theory too...will be taking my camera with me to the archives dept later on so if i can find the pics that T has mentioned i will get some snaps of them although it is possible for the library to photocopy them for me...

will report back

lyn
 
Lyn

The references I have for those 2 pictures are WK/B11/4048 and WK/B11/5753. They are both described as People's Hall of Science. It could be that they are just copies of the picture that started this thread but we definitely need to take a look . . . . !!

I didn't get as far as checking if they have any general views of Loveday Street or Princip Street but obviously that is a bit more of a palaver. Still something we will have to try and do before we finally put this to bed.

Rupert. Re the picture you have shown in Post 108. Strange coincidence about the number of arches but I am absolutely certain that that is a different building i.e. on the opposite corner. So technically on Loveday Street/Shadwell Street as opposed to Loveday Street/Princip Street.

The location where the People's Hall was is actually this newish red brick building that you can just see front left in your picture.

As I said earlier I was looking at OS maps last evening and was also on the spot a bit later. So I would almost stake my life that I am right on that.

T
 
Well i have to say that IF this place was built at all i believe that it would have been on the corner of Shadwell St and Princip St, where a newer building to the rest of the area now stands. Max
 
Max

I think we are in agreement there.

That red brick building - front left in Rupert's picture - is much more modern than the others surrounding, and I am certain that is where the People's Hall building previously stood.

It may well mean that any photograph of that location which is more than say 10/20 years old will have the original PH building on it.

Apologies if I am wrong on any of this - but I am being as scientific as possible!!

MB
 
My belief is that the site it MAY have stood on is not the Keatly building,if as we are told it was demolished !!! my thought is that it is on the opposite side of the road, corner of LOWER LOVEDAY ST/SHADWELL St, but the Keatly building is a good call by Rupert. This is good fun Love it. Max
 
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OK. The building on the Princip corner in 1890 or before (takes time to make and print a survey) is the wrong size by measuring the building. I have looked at many documents and seen the numbers 40 ft x 70 ft somewhere I think. If you measure the building on the Shadwell side today it conforms to those numbers and also the building that was in the same spot in 1890. It is set back from the curb on Shadwell... possibly where the Portico stood and maybe there is some inkling of a portico on the 1890 map. When it was built maybe Princip ran right through...to be changed in name, at that junction, later. It appears to be joined to the building behind now but is obviously not contemporary with it and you can still see the rear frontage (for want of a better expression) at that point if you look just above the roof line.
It's obvious that many changes have been made over time and there are indications of frontal facing that maybe more school like perhaps but the side upper windows remain (if indeed this is the building in question) Where they could only be; in between the faux collumns that hold the roof up. They may be a bit longer now though.
There is no indication that the sketch is 'as built', that I have seen; which is very grandiose and there are words that indicate that money was in short supply. So maybe the heavy stone base was never applied and only regular brick that we are all accustomed to was used and ecconomies were made. The sketch may well be a proposal drawing only. Even so what seems like columns on the side are not in fact. If you look closely you will see that they are rectangular and jutting out from the sides about brick width and imitating the same. Anyway we should not be looking for a shiny white building maybe...just something that is more familiar to us back to back'ers.
Like you maybe, I looked at the 1890 map and saw Peoples Hall Works on the other side of the street and figured that the building was there but there is no reason to believe that this was the case and that company may have just used the name because the Hall was there first. They may well have used the Hall across the street as a warehouse; which would have required modifications to the front to move stuff in and out. When this company died or moved or before this, the same building might have become the RC School indicated on the map. Remember there is 40+ years between the 1890 map and the building date. Anyway good hunting.
By the way, is it written anywhere that the building was demolished.
 
I attach two extracts from the 1845 and 1878 directories for lower loveday st. If you look at the directories dates between them, you can see there has been no renumbering, so they are referring to the same area. Lower Loveday st began at Bath St , and the 1845 directory shows the Peoples Hall was between The beginning of Lower Loveday st and Princip St. As Princip st changes to Shadwell St at Lower Loveday St, this should show that The Peoples Hall is on the east side of Lower loveday st , south of princip st. In case there is any worry that the directory doesn’t list the side of the street and whether Princip St always changed to Shadwell St at the same place, I show the 1878 listing, where the numbering is the same and shows that the hall was at that position (which is where the Peoples Hall works is shown on later maps

1878_lower_loveday_st.JPG


1845_lower_loveday_st.JPG
 
hi all....well i managed to get to the library and thanks to Ts references to the 2 pics of the hall managed to see them....the first one was identical to phils original drawing and this one was one film..when the archavist saw it he like a few of us at first thought it was the town hall....but after compering this and the other he seems to think that phils pic was maybe the way the hall was surposed to look but in the end it was scaled down...anyhow here is the pic and the info that was written on the back...rupert..your theory was correct...

lyn
 
Its good to see a picture. the slope of the hill confirms the directory that it must have been the other side of Loveday st , where the Peoples Hall Works are listed.
 
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