Friday Photo- Inside Curzon Street Station
I was lucky enough to have a sneak peek inside Curzon Street Station this week as Birmingham Heritage Week prepared for their launch event on Wednesday. Working opposite the building, I have to admit that I take it for granted every single day. Opened in 1838 and closing in 1966, it was once known as Birmingham Station, transporting passengers to and from London, a journey that took a staggering five and a half hours to complete. It took 20,000 men to build and four and a half years to complete. Walking inside the building, you’re immediately hit by the grandeur, the history and the smell that permeates the building. I was instantly transported back in time and I quite liked it.
Curzon Street Station is a marvellous Birmingham building which hopefully will find a new role when HS2 comes to Birmingham and the new railway station is built as part of the Curzon Street Masterplan. This part of Digbeth, or Eastside as it was renamed by Birmingham City Council in the early 1990’s is very much the Learning Quarter of Birmingham playing host to Thinktank at Millennium Point, the new Parkside Campus of Birmingham City University, and the former Matthew Boulton College, now known as Midlands Metropolitan College. In the 1990’s the Eastside Masterplan put together by Eastside Director Richard Green in his “Eastside Eyrie” at the top of Birmingham’s most iconic building The Rotunda had the then proposed new Library of Birmingham in Eastside as a magnet to attract Brummies from the City Centre around New Street Station to the growing Eastside area in Digbeth. When a Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition took over the running of Birmingham City Council in the late 1990’s the then Leader of the Council Mike Whitby decreed that the new Library of Birmingham should be built next to the iconic Baskerville House on Broad Street as his “vanity project”. I love the new Library of Birmingham, however in these cash-strapped times for Local Authorities should £189 million have been spent on a new Library, great as it is…………?…….You, Birmingham Citizens decide…..#BrumIsBrill