I didn’t have to look far for the inspiration for my next Arts and Crafts post. Firstly, Charles Edward Bateman was from Castle Bromwich – possibly its third most famous export after the Spitfire and the drummer out of Duran Duran – ...
read more
On my way out of town through Longbridge last week I took a short detour down Leach Green Lane to take a look at the old Rednal Library, which I’d heard was built in an Arts and Crafts style. What I found ...
read more
I visited St Nicholas a month or so ago with my good friend Pat. She had invited me and my friends Tanya and Rob on a tour of the Grammar School and Tudor house on the Green, Kings Norton. Pat is a volunteer ...
read more
For reasons too dull to recount here, a couple of Saturdays ago, I took quite a long walk to St Andrews through Highgate. Although I know surrounding areas pretty well, and I often see the imposing tower of St Alban’s Church popping ...
read more
The Birmingham Guild of Handicraft was an Arts and Crafts organisation established in 1890 by local admirers of John Ruskin and William Morris. The Guild’s motto was ‘By Hammer and Hand’, and it produced high quality hand made pieces of metalware and ...
read more
When I used to sit in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery sketching William Morris patterns for my Art GCSE coursework, I didn’t quite realise the important role Birmingham played in the ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement. And, in turn, the influence the ...
read more
Well, Birmingham’s Frankfurt Christmas Market (as featured in last week’s Friday photo) is over for another year. As it has been running for 12 years* it is almost a heritage asset in its own right now, and – love it or hate ...
read more
John Bright was MP for Birmingham for over thirty years, from 1858 to his death in 1889. A relatively obscure figure now, he was a key reformist figure in the nineteenth century. An independent thinker, for the majority of his parliamentary career ...
read more
A few eyebrows were raised recently by the listing of the 1960s brutalist Moore Street substation in Sheffield, as part of English Heritage’s recent focus on post-war modernist architecture. The building has become a local landmark on the ring road in Sheffield, ...
read more
Something a little different this week for the heritage Friday photo. We are onto signs. I came across this old sign in the summer in Maypole on the council estate above some garages. I think I love that it says “by order ...
read moreClick the links below to support BCT
