Relics of New Street – B’ham Heritage Week

Each September I endeavour to take part in at least one event happening as part of Birmingham Heritage Week. In the past I have attended guided tours of the Cathedral and the (no sadly closed) Electric Cinema. This year I booked onto an intriguing tour of Birmingham’s famous New Street that promised to unveil some the relics that you may miss as you walk down the famous thoroughfare.

The tour guide was Ben Waddington, who you may be familiar with for his brilliant guide book to the city, 111 Places in Birmingham that you should not miss. Ben is a fantastic advert for Birmingham, very knowledgeable about the city, and great at pointing out things that you have probably walked past a million times, and never noticed. His tour starts at the very top of New Street, actually in one of the openings to the Bullring, where there is indeed a stone in the wall that states that this is New Street. (This was the first thing I had never noticed.)

The Relics

From a building labelled Queen’s Corner, to the curious sculpture of a godlike head with hair full of coins, used as a centrepiece to a former bank, now the Apple Store, Ben is not only encouraging you to look up, but to look just that bit closer at familiar places.

One of the most interesting ‘relics’ on the tour is the red stone building that is now the home of Charles Tyrwhitt and Gails Bakery, but was formally the home of the Kardomah Cafe. A ghost sign is still visible to the place that was once the beloved meeting place of the Birmingham Surrealists, a group that included Desmond Morris, and inside Gails you can see the beautiful fireplace and wall wood carvings that graced the original cafe.

The biggest surprise though, is if you venture upstairs in the gents outfitters Charles Tywhitt. A stunning mosaic has been uncovered during renovation work to the store, and it is absolutely worth a trip to Birmingham to see this. The mosaic is very Art Nouveau in flavour and design, and is super intricate and very pretty. Add to this the incredibly attractive windows that show the leaf design that runs outside the store, and you have a beautifully preserved part of Old Birmingham, still here when other neighbours – the Theatre Royal for instance, are mere memories.

You can see some more of the sites on my Instagram feed here.

You can find out more about Ben Waddington’s walks here.

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