Jewellery Quarter

[Joe Brody]

Had a look down there today. Most of it isnt great agreed. Would be struggling to think of a use for the back to backs esp as they front onto Icknield St. Top of Pope St I thought most interesting bit and that seems to be unaffected anyway. Theres a nice old boozer there which would be good to see renovated. The George and Dragon (?) I took some photos but unfortunately am in luddite mode and cant seem to upload em.
Hope the new build is of good quality and should improve the area alright

[Erebus555]

Aah pictures of the George and Dragon by me on the previous page. I wrote a blog entry about the building as well: http://expbirmingham.wordpress.com/2...george-dragon/

[Joe Brody]

Nice pictures, v nice blog Erebus. Will check out that site didnt know about it. Thanks. I agree with you on the facades issue. Assuming the JQ takes off I would have thought a future for this place as a proper pub is possible, as per some of old pubs near Mailbox which seem to have had a new lease of life following redevelopment there

[Erebus555]

Well, the pub is listed. Hopefully something can be found for it before it deteriorates into a state where it can't be repaired.

[Braidy]

Originally Posted by Erebus555

Well, the pub is listed. Hopefully something can be found for it before it deteriorates into a state where it can't be repaired.

There were some council workman doing some hasty repairs (well, knocking glass out of frames) the other day and left a notice basically saying that if you are the owner 'get yer finger out and do something about this building!'

[U475 Foxtrot]

JEWELLERY QUARTER “WORLD HERITAGE” BID
17-01-2008

Birmingham’s historic Jewellery Quarter could soon take its place alongside Stonehenge, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel and Tower and the Statue of Liberty – by being named a World Heritage Site.

City Council cabinet members will meet this time next week to approve a bid for the status which will then be passed to the government for approval. If they give the thumbs up, the final decision will be made by UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific And Cultural Organisation.

There are 851 World Heritage Sites, so it’s not quite as exclusive a club as it first might appear – and while the Jewellery Quarter might not be as beautiful as some of its rivals, it does have a decent claim.

Production started there more than 250 years ago, and it remains the largest centre for jewellery production in Europe, with more than 1,200 businesses. There are growing presures for residential development, though, in spite of a conservation agreement with the City Council.

Marie Haddleton of the Jewellery Quarter Association welcomed the news, saying, “It’s going to need a lot of work, but we’re all for it. We’ve got our fingers crossed.”

She cautioned, though, that it might need more investment to make it a booming attraction. Although the Quarter has two museums – one of the jewellery, the other celebrating the history of the pen, Haddleton admitted, “I’m not sure we’ve got enough to keep the tourists here.

“We need more help from Advantage West Midlands.”

The area has already been identified by English Heritage as an historic industrial area of European importance, and Birmingham’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration Neville Sumerfield commented, “Being designated a World Heritage Site would bring significant kudos and benefits to both the Jewellery Quarter itself and also the wider city of Birmingham.

“The resulting profile and recognition on the international stage would provide not only a huge boost to tourism, but also inward investment and the further conservation and regeneration of this historic part of our city.”

http://www.thestirrer.co.uk/jeweller...r-1701081.html

[mk61]

Seems a generally good idea - hopefully this wont have any serious ramifications for redevelopment in the area, or for that matter the physcial expansion of exisiting businesses there. There are parts of the JQ that just dont need saving despite the heritage of the area.

[Erebus555]

I don't think it's a good idea. If it actually gets the title, we could see some big effects on the development in the area. You can rule out a skyscraper on GCS for starters.

[mk61]

I dont think there were any prospects of that happening anyway were there?

[Erebus555]

Well, by skyscraper, I mean highrise really.

[feltip]

I guess this classes as Jewellery Quarter. Just on corner of Summer Hill

Application number
C/00159/08/FUL

Date application received
11/01/2008

Date application registered
11/01/2008

Status
Under Consultation

Location
Camden Street/Sloane Street, corner of, Summer Hill, Birmingham, B1 3QJ

Proposal
Erection of multi-storey car park with ground floor retail unit and vehicle washing facilities

[Biosonic]

That's for the BMW dealership! Interesting little car park

I think the World Heritage thing would be a good thing for the JQ but as long as they didn't stifle development. There is scope to remove a lot of dross (building-wise) from the area, which can only be a good thing

[Bob_Brum]

Originally Posted by Erebus555

I don't think it's a good idea. If it actually gets the title, we could see some big effects on the development in the area. You can rule out a skyscraper on GCS for starters.

But it doesnt look likely that we'll get a skyscraper on Great Charles Street anyway. Perhaps the best locations for these would be the Broad Street / Suffolk Street axis to the west and the Snow Hill / St Chads / Lancaster Circus axis to the north. To have the whole JQ area listed and declared a world heritage site could be interesting though. We have here a pretty dense collection of period victorian buildings of modest size but rich in historical merit, of which around half are sadly in a rather dilapidated and poorly maintained state.

If money had been found and developers precured to redevelop these and have them all fully occupied a decade ago, goodness only knows how lucrative the whole area would be right now. The potential has always been there, its just its taken a little longer than usual for proposals for their redeployment to come to fruit.

I love wandering around this area just contemplating on the tumbledown nature of some of these streets, and when you look at the city prospect from this north western directiion it's actually quite unusual - this vista of small terractotta and fanciful architecture serving as an apron for the hi rise clusters that loom behind them.

[brum2003]

a similiar application was turned down ten years ago, its another government inspired 'competition' for forwarding to the UN

don't hold your breath ! but I hope I get to eat my words and my hat

[feltip]

It appears from today's post article there would be quite a fight with other UK locations for the UK nomination.

Heritage status call for Jewellery Quarter
Jan 18 2008

By Tom Scotney


Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter should be listed along with monuments like the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China and the Statue of Liberty, a council report has recommended.

The planning report says the historic district should be recommended to the Government as a potential candidate for a World Heritage Site.

It would join a list that includes the likes of Stonehenge and the Tower of London as the most important historical sites in the country.

The report, to be discussed by Birmingham City Council's planning committee on Thursday, said giving the area World Heritage status would bring international attention, as well as attracting investment and increasing tourism.

The move is supported by Lord Mayor Randall Brew, the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, as well as senior figures in the council.

Councillor Neville Summerfield, cabinet member for regeneration, said: "It would bring significant kudos and benefits to both the Jewellery Quarter and the wider city of Birmingham.

"The resulting profile and recognition on the international stage would provide not only a huge boost to tourism, but also inward investment and the further conservation and regeneration of this historic part of our city."

The Jewellery Quarter dates back more than 250 years, and is the largest active centre for jewellery production in Europe. It is still home to many businesses established in the 1800s, as well as the world's oldest assay office.

More than 1,200 creative businesses, and at least 100 designers operate out of the district. During the golden age of the district, more than 60,000 people were employed in its bustling jewellery industry.


In 1824 the Birmingham Assay Office was given the first licence to hallmark precious metals, after gold rushes in Australia and the US led to an increased demand for jewellery.


In the 1970s the district remodelled itself as a retail area, with shops springing up to cater for customers looking to buy their jewellery direct from the source. It is now also the site of blocks of city living apartments.


The district was identified by English Heritage as a historic industrial area of European importance in 1999, and it has been designated a Conservation Area by the City Council.


If it was created a World Heritage Site it would be one of the only ones still in operation, with the majority being sites of historical importance.


The extra money created by naming it a World Heritage Site would be a huge boon to the city, the Chamber of Commerce said.


Charlotte Ritchie, head of policy at at the Chamber, said: "The Jewellery Quarter is a national treasure and fully deserves to become a World Heritage Site. It is one of the birthplaces of the industrial revolution and to this day manufactures works that are the envy of the world. Other World Heritage Sites in Britain, such as Liverpool, Bath and Durham have benefited hugely from an influx of additional tourists and if Birmingham joins this list it will be worth millions of pounds to the local economy as well as raising the profile of the city and its industrial heritage around the world."


World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) after nomination by governments. Currently there are 851 sites across the world.


The World Heritage programme was created to identify and protect important sites of global cultural or national value. If backed by the committee next week, the proposal will go before a full meeting of the council before being submitted to the Government.


The Department of Culture, Media and Sport, advised by English Heritage, is responsible for submitting formal bids for World Heritage Status to UNESCO.


If a Jewellery Quarter bid is recommended by Birmingham City Council, it would face a battle with Shake-speare's Stratford, along with Chatham Dockyard, Kent, the Lake District, the New Forest, and about a dozen other sites to get the UK nomination.

http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/...name_page.html

[mk61]

Originally Posted by brum2003

a similiar application was turned down ten years ago, its another government inspired 'competition' for forwarding to the UN

don't hold your breath ! but I hope I get to eat my words and my hat

Sadly I agree. I apologise for sounding cynical, but if the decision is going to be made by the government, there's a bloody good chance we'll be overlooked

[U475 Foxtrot]

Here the full list of candidates from 1999 England
http://icomos-uk.org/whs/nominations/

England

Chatham Naval Dockyard
Chatham Dockyard is the supreme example of a Royal dockyard largely unaltered from the age of sail, at a period when the Royal Navy was instrumental in Britain's global influence and when, before the full impact of the Industrial Revolution, dockyards were the largest industrial centres in Europe.

Darwin's Home and Workplace: Down House and Environs
Down House was Charles Darwin's home from 1842 until his death in 1882. Here he studied, thought and wrote his great influential works including The Origin of Species. The grounds and surrounding landscape provided much of the inspiration for his revolutionary insights of the natural world, ecology and bio-diversity, which continue to have significant influence today.

The Lake District
The Lake District is outstandingly beautiful. It possesses a unique combination of spectacular mountains and rugged fells, pastoral and wooded valleys, and numerous lakes, tarns and rivers. The character of the area is inseparable form its cultural history, and the personalities, life styles and traditions of the Lake District people. Each valley has its own individuality, and the resulting diversity of the landscape contributes enormously to the quality of the area as a whole.

Manchester and Salford (Ancoats, Castlefield and Worsley)
Manchester is the archetype city of the Industrial Revolution. It witnessed the creation of Britain's first industrial 'true' canal. Britain's first mainline, inter-city passenger railway and the country's first industrial suburb based on steam power; it is on these three themes that the proposed World Heritage Site designation concentrates. Thus the city centre itself, which is arguably the finest expression of a Victorian commercial district in England, complements the present nomination but is not included within the boundary of the proposed site.

Monkwearmouth and Jarrow Monastic Sites
The twin Saxon monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow - 'one monastery in two places' - were the creation of one man, Benedict Biscop, who had travelled abroad (to Rome and elsewhere) in the 650s and had returned determined to build a monastery 'in the Roman manner'. The historian Bede was a member of the community from the age of seven, having been entrusted to Benedict Biscop c. 680.

The New Forest
The New Forest is an area of outstanding wildlife and landscape interest fashioned by human intervention and use over thousands of years. It extends to about 580 square kilometres, based on the New Forest Heritage Area boundary. The human processes that have shaped the landscape over time are well demonstrated by the rich archaeological heritage, particularly from the Bronze Age and Roman period, and a documented history going back to the 11th century. An extensive dispersed pastoral system is still practised today over a large part of the area. The landscapes and habitats themselves also provide an important testimony to this interaction.

The Great Western Railway: Paddington-Bristol (selected parts)
The Great Western Railway between London and Bristol was authorised by Parliament in 1835, and was opened in stages from both ends from 1838 onwards. The detail of its construction was entirely the conception of Isamabard Kingdom Brunel and was to be, in his own words, 'the finest work in the kingdom'. It was opened throughout 1841 with the completion of the Box Tunnel, the greatest engineering feat of early railway construction. Built to Brunel's broad gauge of seven foot, its engineering works achieved a grandeur at that time unmatched elsewhere in the country and, as they were suited to high speed running, most of these structures have survived and are in daily use.

Shakespeare's Stratford
The names of Stratford and Shakespeare are synonymous throughout the world. The writer who has exerted the greatest global influence was intimately connected with the town throughout his life. Stratford was where he was born, brought up, went to school, met his wife and baptised his children; it was also the place where he invested most of his theatrical earnings, maintained his family, retired and died. Many influences of Stratford and its outlying countryside have been traced in Shakespeare's writings, and a significant number of the surviving Shakespeare documents relate to his business and family affairs in Stratford.

The Wash and North Norfolk Coast
The Wash and North Norfolk Coast is an area of international nature conservation importance comprising an area of some 70,000 hectares. It is designated a Ramsar site under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as a Waterfowl Habitat (Ramsar Convention). It is also a Special Protection Area under the Council Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds (79/409/EEC), and is a candidate Special Area of Conservation under the Council Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and Wild Fauna and Flora (92/43/EEC). Parts of the North Norfolk coast are also a Biosphere Reserve designated under the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB).

Scotland

The Cairngorm Mountains
The Cairngorm Mountains comprise the largest continuous area of high ground above 1,000m in Britain and include most of the highest summits in Scotland. These mountains, with their distinctive plateau surfaces and glacially sculptured features, are surrounded by open moorland and glens. The climate reflects a unique combination of oceanic and continental influences, characterised by wet and windy conditions rather than extreme cold. The diversity of landforms present in the Cairngorms provides exceptional insights into long-term processes of mountain landscape evolution and environmental change in a maritime, mid-latitude setting in the northern hemisphere. This geomorphological development spans the latter part of the Tertiary period with its warm humid climate, through the ice ages of the last 2.5 million years, to the present day.

The Flow Country
These peatlands are possibly the largest single area of blanket bog in the world. Together with associated areas of moorland and open water they are of international importance for conservation both as a habitat in their own right and because they support a diverse range of rare and unusual breeding birds.

The Forth Rail Bridge
The Forth Rail Bridge, which was opened in 1890, is an internationally recognised symbol of the achievements of late 19th century engineering. Its robust and original design took account of the lessons on the effect of wind on exposed bridges learned from the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879. It was the first major steel bridge in Europe. It is certainly the best known Rail Bridge in the world, and one of the most renowned civil engineering feats of all time.

Wales

Pont-Cysyllte Aqueduct
Pont-Cysyllte Aqueduct is one of the world's most renowned and spectacular achievements of waterways engineering. Built as apart of the improvement of transport to provide the arteries of industrialisation, the structure was a pioneer of cast iron construction and was the highest canal aqueduct ever built. As such, it is one of the heroic monuments which symbolise the world's first Industrial Revolution and its transformation of technology.

Northern Ireland

Mount Stewart gardens
Mount Stewart is one of the most spectacular and idiosyncratic gardens of Western Europe and universally renowned for the 'extraordinary scope of its plant collections and the originality of its features which give it world-class status'. It was created within and old demesne on the shores of Strangford Lough, whose fine parkland trees and shelter belts were established for the 1782-83 house. A celebrated garden building, the Temple of the Winds, was added to the parkland in 1782-83 and the house was enlarged to the designs of Dance in 1804, and by Morrison in the late 1830s.

Overseas Territories

Fountain Cavern, Anguilla
The Fountain Cavern is one of 19 Indian sites identified by an archaeological survey in 1979. Of the 19 sites, following extensive scientific studies, the Fountain Cavern is considered to be the most important archaeological site on the island. The historical significance of the site to Anguilla and the region has led to the decision by the Government of Anguilla to develop a National Park with the Fountain Cavern as the focus. The other 18 sites will also form part of educational tours which centre around the National Park in order to provide a comprehensive overview of Amerindian culture in Anguilla and the region.

The Fortress of Gibraltar
The Rock of Gibraltar is one of the world's unique examples of a natural beacon and fortress which has been the focus, because of its geological and strategic position, of the attention of humans since the early days of prehistory. The Rock has long been the symbol of strength and stability and its singular geological makeup has permitted its use and defence by successive cultures. The Rock of Gibraltar, 6 kilometres long by 1 kilometre wide, has one of the highest densities of universal heritage in the world and for this reason it is the entire peninsular, the natural fortress, which is included in the proposed World Heritage site.

[Erebus555]

Originally Posted by Bob_Brum

But it doesnt look likely that we'll get a skyscraper on Great Charles Street anyway. Perhaps the best locations for these would be the Broad Street / Suffolk Street axis to the west and the Snow Hill / St Chads / Lancaster Circus axis to the north. To have the whole JQ area listed and declared a world heritage site could be interesting though. We have here a pretty dense collection of period victorian buildings of modest size but rich in historical merit, of which around half are sadly in a rather dilapidated and poorly maintained state.

We could quite easily get a large building on the Great Charles Street site. Skyscraper, definitely not. I chose my wording poorly in that post. With a World Heritage Site designation, the site could be put in jeopardy. The UN are not going to designate a site a WHS when the surrounding area is changing the image of it.

If money had been found and developers precured to redevelop these and have them all fully occupied a decade ago, goodness only knows how lucrative the whole area would be right now. The potential has always been there, its just its taken a little longer than usual for proposals for their redeployment to come to fruit.

Well, a decade ago, the regeneration boom was only just starting. Our first city centre apartments only completed in 1995 (Symphony Court, Brindleyplace)! The area has only started to become popular in the way it is in the last 10 years. Back then, it was seen as a place to get cheap, yet high quality jewellery. Back then, city centre living was a very new concept. Back then, the Jewellery Quarter was more cut off from the city core than it is now! It's only been in the last five years or so that the potential has actually floated.

[feltip]

I remember as a kid going to the old science museum and it was such a way out and across busy roads. Now it's a hop skip and then roll down Newhall street.

Partly as you get older and things don't seem so large (cough)

[mk61]

Had a wander through the JQ heading down from the train station, to St Pauls Square and into town. New and old stuff, and not too much as I was in one helluva rush - I'll edit with the locations later. I just want to get them up and go buy a kebab. I'm Hank Marvin.

Edited to the best of my ability - there's enough in the JQ to keep a photographer occupied for hours. Really loved walking round there, I should do it more often.

Unknown building - looking across Warstone Lane Cemetery from Vyse Street


Corner Vyse St and Pitsford St


The Chamberlain Clock on Warstone Lane


Warstone Lane looking east from the clock.


Rose Villa Tavern with the Big Peg behind.


Corner of Regent St and Frederick St.


Graham St.


New development on the corner of George St and Newhall St, opposite the Hub-like carpark.