... past the Floozie, then turn right

In the Autumn of 2015, I started staying in the centre of Birmingham. This started because hotels near the office were full. However, I found the centre with its canals and civic buildings - new and old very much worth exploring and so started staying in the centre quite often.

Postcard of Birmingham, Municipal Buildings and Art Gallery, posted in 1908.

This postcard, from my Dad's old collection, was posted in 1908. It shows the Municipal Buildings and Art Gallery. When emerging from the rather bewildering new Birmingham New Street station, that tower was a welcome sight. Walking towards it would set me on the right road for my hotel.

Ina Taylor's biography of Edith Holden tells us that in 1869:

When Edith was only two, her father was elected to the Town Council, a great honour for someone newly arrived in the town. ...

Arthur Holden's period of service on the Town Council must have been an interesting one; he was working with Joseph Chamberlain during the third term of office as Mayor of Birmingham. ... Joseph Chamberlain and Arthur Holden were members of the Gas Committee during this time."

There must have been times when the area in which Arthur carried out his duties was a building site. Wikipedia tells us that the Municipal buildings shown in the postcard were started ...

... in 1874 when the first stone was laid by the then mayor Joseph Chamberlain. 

The Birmingham Museums blog tells us:

... in 1885 an extension was added. This part of the building, although now known as the Water Hall, was originally used to house offices for the Birmingham Gas Corporation. In 1912 when the Museum Bridge Gallery extension was built it became the Water Hall and remained in use until 1972. For the city’s population it provided an impressive ground floor banking hall for Birmingham Corporation’s public water supply, with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery on the first floor above.

The Council House with Christmas greeting, 2015

My modern photo shows the Municipal Buildings towering above Birmingham's Christmas Market.

The Floozie aka The River, October 2015.

One day, when asking for directions to the station, a local pointed and told me to "Go that way, past the Floozie, then turn right."

The official name for the Floozie is "The River". The Birmingham News tells us that was unveiled in 1993 and sat in a fountain with a cascade, which led to her being nick named the "Floozie in the Jacuzzi". Sadly the fountain leaked and the Jacuzzi was converted to a garden.  There is talk of restoring the fountain but people have become attached to the attractive garden.

Cold North West wind ...

As November 2006 drew to a close, Edith noted that ...

The first sharp white frost we have had, cold North West wind with showers of hail and rain.

The weather at the end of November 2015 was much more pleasant but nevertheless the year was drawing to a close.  On the 26th of November, I visited Birmingham's Christmas market.

First, a wander through the stalls and amusements in Victoria Square ...

A moonlit scene

 

larger than life decorations

Then, I headed towards Centenary Square and explored the craft stalls.

Craft stalls



Close to this jolly scene, the Hall of Remembrance that I mentioned in my previous post, provided a quiet oasis amongst the lights and bustle.

Hall of Remembrance and big wheel.

It was here that I made a slight miscalculation. The only big wheel that I've been on before is the enormous but sedate London Eye. So I handed over my money and hopped casually into one of the gondolas. Before I knew it, I was rising above Birmingham at a considerable pace. The wheel spun merrily around while I clung to the side looking out over the city.

Faster than it looks!

After staggering off, giggling with the people from the next gondola, I walked past the ice rink.

ice rink

It was so mild last year that many places had trouble keeping their ice rinks sufficiently cold.

The Edwardian Lady and Birmingham New Street

Edith Holden is famous for her Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, written in 1906.  However she also had a successful career as an artist and illustrator.  Her biography, by Ina Taylor, says:

In art particularly the town was well served with galleries at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists [RBSA] where the two exhibitions every year attracted great interest. A museum was established, and there was also the Municipal Art School, which had a reputation for being the best art school outside London.

Edith entered the art school at 13, having already shown a talent for sketching. While at the school, she won prizes.  When she completed her basic training, she specialized in animal paintings.

When she was 19 one of her paintings was accepted for the RBSA Autumn Exhibition. From 1890 to 1907 she regularly exhibited at the RBSA.  Wikipedia tells us that, at this time, the gallery stood behind a neo-classical portico in New Street. It says: Increasing financial pressure in the early years of the 20th century led to the society's landmark New Street building being demolished and rebuilt as part of a commercial redevelopment.

The RBSA website says:  In April 2000, after being based at New Street in Birmingham since 1829, the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists relocated to a new gallery just off St Paul’s Square.


New Street's Grand Central station - work continues on the roads outside.

When Edith was exhibiting her paintings in New Street, there was already a fine, Victorian station. The New Street, New Start web site tells us: The station was badly damaged by bombing raids in World War ll leading to the removal of the roof after the war.  The original station was finally demolished in 1964. The station that replaced it has just been superseded by the new "Grand Central" station. I've travelled through there several times as I am working just a few stops down the line , near Birmingham international.

Birmingham Canals and the Edwardian Country Lady's Time

This week I'm staying in central Birmingham close to the Gas Street Basin, which is part of the city's extensive canal system. The basin is associated with the New Main Line, which the Canal and River Trust describes as the 19th-century equivalent of a motorway. In 2016, canal-side cafes and pubs and other entertainments give a lively, buzzy atmosphere.

Gas Street Basin, 26 January 2016

Edith Holden made few references to the canals in the Diary of an Edwardian Country Lady. Her entry for the 8th of January mentions visiting a small wood, presumably near her home in Olton, on the canal bank. She mentions this wood a couple more times in her diary.

Perhaps its not surprising that Edith makes little mention of canals. Competition from the railways had sent them into sharp decline and it would be another half-century before we started to see them as a place of leisure and haven for nature. I didn't see any wildlife this time but, when visiting last year, I'I saw Canada Geese near the Worcester Bar Bridge.

Worcester Bar Bridge - no geese this time.

I find myself wondering what the canals would have been like in Edith's time.

The Birmingham post has a gallery of intriguing photos.  Images of a hard working but crumbling transport system from the early 20th Century are mixed with cheerful shots of 1980s volunteers and leisure-seekers restoring and enjoying the waterways.  There are a couple of early photos of places are familiar from my previous visits to the area.  In one, Bystanders look on after the canal wall collapses in Gas Street in 1901. The walls are now in good condition and the top end of the street full of smart places to eat and drink. One of my favourites is the Pickled Piglet, which has a great-value set price menu, ideal after a day at the office.

The Pickled Piglet, Gas Street.

In another of the pictures you can see boats carrying heavy loads of  coal.   These old photos speak of a harsh life, in which our energy needs were supplied by heavy coals rather than the flick of a switch.  I wonder who carried the coals in Edith's home?  Her biography, by Ina Taylor, tells us that in 1906 that their house in Olton was "ideal for the diminishing family and less affluent times." and that "at Olton they only their maid Florence living in and relied more on daily help." including a laundress that came in once a week, a daily cleaner and twice-a-week gardener.  Maybe it was the daily cleaner was the one who lugged the coal into the house, laid and cleaned the fires?

Not far from a Pond

I made it to Birmingham for the first time this year on the 12th of January. Looking at the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, Edith’s entry for January 12 was “Saw several Moorhens feeding on a newly ploughed field not far from a pond.” It is a accompanied by a water colour of a moorhen beside a pond. So my mission is to find a moorhen or other water bird.

Before I do that I’d better tell you about where I am.  I’m working at Trinity Park, which is on the eastern edge of Birmingham. This business park is tucked into a corner between the Euston to Birmingham railway line and the A45, which is the Coventry Road.  Maps from the early 20th Century show that these trunk routes followed the same lines that they do today. Instead of Virgin Pendelinos and traffic roaring past office blocks and a hotel,  steam trains and horse-drawn vehicles would have been passing fields. Maybe there were motor vehicles too. Austin had just started manufacturing cars at Longbridge to the south-west of the city.

The early maps don’t show the  pond, which is in a shady corner between two office blocks and the now monstrous Bickenhill Lane.

The Trinity Park pond, just before dawn.

When I first visited the pond at 7:30 am, it was too dark to see any birds but the scene was pretty with the dark velvety heads (actually catkins) of bulrush and the lights of offices reflected in the black waters.  I packed in about an hour's work before coming back. I'm in luck. Before I even get to the pond I can see a coot dipping for its breakfast. As I watch it, a pair of ducks appear from the bulrushes.

Mallards (ducks) emerging from the bullrushes.

As I prowl round the edge of the pond to get a better view of the coot, I notice its mate, still clinging to its bed in the dried stems of water plants at the edge of the pond. It slowly clambers out just like someone dragging themselves out of their sleep after being woken after an early alarm.

Coots. Sorry - My watercolour skills are a bit rusty!

A moorhen explodes from its hiding place, flies clumsily across the pond and crashes into the bullrushes. It is time for me to get back to work, so I pack up my camera and go.

Acock Green - The Edwardian Lady's Childhood Home

The Edwardian Lady is Edith Holden, who wrote the famous "Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady". This book contains natural history observations that she made while exploring the Solihull/Birmingham area. My intention is to create a 21st Century equivalent.

I didn't make it to Birmingham this week but S, a colleague, circulated an article via Facebook that mentioned Acocks Green, a place that Edith lived in as a child.

Ina Taylor's biography of Edith Holden says that as her family grew bigger, in about 1876, they ...

... moved to a larger house called the Elms in another village, Acocks Green, a few miles south of Birmingham. Edith was then five and able to remember the house later.

... Another pursuit which the children shared with their parents was walking in the country around Acocks Green. Arthur Holden loved the countryside and had a good knowledge of the birds and wild plants of the area. Mrs Holden was not always strong enough to accompany them, so the children made a special point of picking a colourful bunch of flowers to cheer her.

The Holdens' bunches of flowers probably included violets.

The Acocks Green History Society web site explains that, after the railway arrived in 1852, Acock Green grew rapidly and, in 1911 was absorbed into Birmingham. They have also gathered a selection of  postcards, which show what the village looked like in the early 1900s.

William Dargue's site's Acocks Green page has modern photos, which show that there are still green places to explore. Also, there are plenty of flowers to see thanks to the 'Bloom Team' whose efforts are described in the Village in Bloom section of the Acocks Green Neighbourhood Forum.

The article that sparked off this post was a Birmingham Mail piece about a different type of green-fingered activity altogether. It describes a Police raid on a house in Florence Road, just the other side of the railway line from where Edith lived, in which 411 cannabis plants were being grown.

Stumbling across Edwardian Lady Country

Depending upon how old you are, you might remember the late 1970s publishing sensation, The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.  Edith Holden wrote the diary, illustrated with charming watercolours, over the course of 1906. When it was published 70 years later the tremendously popular book inspired designs for household furnishings, a TV programme and so much more.  In fact, we still have the book and one of these covers in our Sussex home.

The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.

Since March 2015, I have been working and staying in hotels near Birmingham International Airport and the NEC. The last thing I expected was that this would reunite me with a favourite book from my teenage years.

Holiday Inn, Birmingham Airport

In the summer, while I was staying at the Birmingham Airport Holiday Inn, I discovered Elmdon Park, which is just the other side of the duel carriageway. The park is next to the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust Elmdon Manor nature reserve. This contains a lovely old walled garden, which reminded me strongly of the one in the Secret Garden novel.

An intriguing walled garden in the Elmdon Manor nature reserve.

Intrigued, I did a little Googling and found a reference to Edith Holden walking in Elmdon Park and the surroundings. I could hardly wait to get home and dust off our old copy and find out more. Sure enough, she mentions Elmdon Park a handful of times. In her entry for the 18th of January 1906 she says "Today I saw a curious Oak tree, growing in a field near Elmdon Park. From a distance it looked if half of the tree were dead and the other half covered with glossy green leaves." It feels strange to read these words almost 110 years to the day after she wrote them especially as I have looked over those fields. They may have aircraft flying over them but they still grow crops, just as they did in Edith's time.

When writing her 1906 diary, Edith was a school teacher who lived in Olton. She would often walk or cycle from her home, recording what she saw. Over the course of 2016 I hope make some posts inspired by what I read in her diary and what I find while exploring Birmingham and its outskirts.