I noticed an interesting site linking to some of our material on the Back to Backs. Jacqui from the Ratheram Family have been exploring their history. She has traced her GGGG Grandfather back to Birmingham

My ancestors were Labourers, Brass Casters, Pig Iron Welders, Cabinet Makers, and Gas Lamp Makers. Most of these jobs would have paid low wages and many of the families had up to 8 children or more.

Free entry and drinks to a series of debates/talks about architects and how they might make Birmingham a better place. For more see the Birmingham Architectural Association. Hat tip to Rob.

The BBC, Arts Council, Audiences Central and others has launched a hugely ambitious arts project for the West Midlands - one which you can join. I know from the Birmingham Flickr group how many people are passionate about taking pictures of buildings in the city. The Big Picture allows you to add you pictures (of anything or anyone in the West Midlands) as part of a bid to make the biggest photo montage yet created.

It has the added advantage of using photography, which is one of the most accessible art forms. Anyone with a mobile phone and some sort of internet access can join this project - and lets home they do! It’s not the first time the BBC has used flickr - Picture of Britain was also tied into the enormously popular photo sharing social-network. However there a little more to this project.

I just want to mention a couple of individuals working on the Big Picture. Jon Bounds has been helping to keep this website going for almost two years now (thank you Jon). Stef Lewandowski is (amongst other things) a key member of the Birmingham Flickr Group of photographers (both professional and amateur - all talented and passionate about this city). Congrats both.

We’re nicking this from Jon Bounds - verbatim:

James Fitzjames Fraser West, is going to start blogging on livejounral in January, only thing is he’s been dead since 1883. James was a surgeon at Queen’s Hospital (later the Accident Hospital, and now a hall of residence for students at the University), who lived in Edgbaston.

His diary gives fascinating insights into daily life in Victorian Birmingham, as well as including plenty of information on Victorian medicine and foreign travel along the way - all written up with keen insight and a wry sense of humour. He even undertook a month’s excursion through France and Italy in March-April 1883, courtesy of Thomas Cook and Son.

The serialisation is being undertaken to celebrate the publication of a biography of West: A Victorian Surgeon. A Biography of James Fitzjames Fraser West 1833-83, Birmingham Surgeon (which is descriptive if not exactly a snappy title)

It is intended to be a kind of Victorian version of Pepys diary, in that one entry will be blogged every day, complete with annotations providing pictures of the people and places mentioned in the diary, and further information about them.

Thanks Jon

This weekend voting comes to an end on the rather low key campaign to hand £50 million from the Big Lottery Fund to one of four projects.

Amongst the finalist is the Black Country Urban Park which plans to turn the Black Country Green. What to do with Birmingham’s Historic Buildings? The programme includes support for a bid for World Heritage Status for the Black Country canals and their associated buildings. It’s the most local of the ideas pitching for the £50 million and will have the greatest impact on the West Midlands built heritage.

To vote online go the this site - you’ll have to log n and register to prevent us all voting oddles of times.

Another project which will have some local benefit is the Sustrans pitch - part of a national walking and cycling network which would see the money spent in Birmingham and 78 other local authorities.

You may have spotted on our website a little badge which says shop here to support the Birmingham Conservation Trust. If you use this link to do your shopping between now and January 31st 2008 we could win £1000.

Whether we win the competition or not we will still receive a small percentage of the money you spend on Christmas presents or perhaps holiday flights. With some things we get loadsamoney: if you sign up for Sky TV through the link we could receive up to £120!

I know it sounds a bit bonkers but you pay the normal prices. We are simply getting a share of the shops marketing budget for passing your custom their way.

http://www.buy.at/birminghamconservation

So please have a good browse and buy if the deals are good for you. Tell your friends. At the moment Aldershot Football Club is in the lead - lets make that Birmingham Conservation Trust!

We’ve already had a number of people contacting us to book their places on the two tours the trust is running. We’re opening Newman Brothers, which is emptying fast as volunteers and a team of professionals catalogue and store the contents, and Curzon Street Station. To book your place please follow this link.

Of course we’re not alone. For all the buildings open in the West Midlands please follow this link. The link to Birmingham buildings is here, and below is the full list of places you can visit.

* A Kings Norton Trail
* Aston Manor Transport Museum
* Back to Backs
* Birmingham Cathedral
* Birmingham Tours Bull Ring Walk
* Birmingham Tours Canal Walk
* Blakesley Hall
* Bull Street Quaker Meeting House
* Civic Sculpture in the City Centre Walk
* Curzon Street Station
* Department of Art
* Guided Walk - Moseley Hall & Village
* Guided Walk - The Lost Farms of Harborne
* Handsworth Old Town Hall
* John Hardman & Co (est 1838) Stained Glass Manufacturers
* Key Hill Cemetery
* Museum Collections Centre
* Museum Collections Centre
* Museum of the Jewellery Quarter - Walking Tours
* New Hall Water Mill
* Newman Brothers’ Coffin Fittings Factory
* Old Grammar School and The Saracen’s Head
* Pen Room Museum
* Selly Manor
* Singers Hill Synagogue
* Soho House Museum
* St Andrew’s Church
* St Chad’s Cathedral Guided Tour
* St John’s and St Peter’s Church with Ladywood Arc
* St Nicolas’s Church
* St Paul’s Church
* The Midlands International Buddhist Association (Birmingham Buddhist Maha Vihara)
* The Museum of the Jewellery Quarter
* Warwickshire Masonic Temple

Have fun!

English Heritage is urging us all to vote for Stonehenge in a global competition to define the new 7 Wonders of the World. The pyramids have been put through automatically, leaving 21 contenders including the Stature of Liberty and Sydney Opera House.

Voting closes next month and Bernard Webber, the man organising the whole shebang, said this of his visit to Britain:

If only the cars and trucks weren’t there to disturb the silence deserved by this very old, in fact the oldest monument on the 21 finalists list. It was built by humans almost 5,000 years ago, before iron was invented and most probably before they even had the wheel to transport those huge blocks (some weigh over 50 tons) many, many miles…This takes me to the limit of my imagination. It is Stonehenge’s simplicity, reduction to the minimum that is so impressive and inspiring.

Photo from Sleep-Less in Flickr.

Soho Foundry image copyright 2007 Ted Rudge.
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Expect interesting developments over the next couple of years for Soho Foundry, a place which Simon Baddeley describes as “part of a Silicon Valley of the 18th century”. (The picture was taken by Ted Rudge a few days ago)

Simon and the Friends of Black Patch Park have recently visited the foundry after a campaign to secure the future use of the park as, well, a park. The park and the foundry sit opposite each other on the borders of Birmingham and Sandwell and recently Sandwell Council agreed to reverse their plans to turn parts of the park over for industrial use. It comes at the same time as the local authority is looking for a new future for Soho Foundry based on it’s critical place in world industrial heritage. It is where James Watt crafted the steam engines which powered a global industrial revolution and you can read more of the visit to the foundry here:

Its brick shell is next to the old Birmingham canal that served it - visible through an iron bridge colonised by buddleah. The canal basin that served the foundry was filled in long ago.
Warned to stand back for fear of falling masonry we peered in at its dappled spaciousness - the grumble of metal recycling in an adjacent yard resonated in the background. We took pictures, asked questions and strolled the surrounding dereliction, glancing south to the tree tops of the Black Patch.

You can also listen to the cabinet member responsible for the Foundry talking to Simon about how heritage is the future for the park and the foundry if you click here.

The picture of the Jewellery Quarter in 1976 (yes just 30 years ago) is one of hundreds of extraordinary images you can browse online from Keith Berry. He describes the stash of images as:

A selection of my scanned photographs and slides taken between the 1960s and 1990s, in and around Birmingham,
Bromsgrove, Smethwick, West Bromwich and Walsall. You are welcome to add comments about, and personal
reminiscences of, the streets and neighbourhoods depicted. Many thanks to those of you who have already done so,
as it very much helps to fill in the fine details.

To look through them please go here. If you like what you see why not vote for this on upyerbrum. Hat tip to Brum Blog.