January 28th – A wet, dripping Lichfield was beautiful in the late afternoon and dusk, though. Surprisingly cold but glistening, I always love this city in the rain.
It’ll be nice to see some leaves on the trees of Beacon Street again, though. Hurry up, spring!
May 15th – I was pleased to note while in Birmingham that a piece of public art I thought had been lost from St. Chad’s Circus subway was still extant, and had been moved. The mosaic or whatever it is – it’s more like a veneer than anything, but it’s not wood – is of trains and transport and commemorates Snow Hill Station, which was closed (I think) at the time it was created.
The work used to be on the subway wall in one of the most horrid underpasses in the city centre. When the subterranean horror was infilled, I assumed the work had been lost, and forgot about it.
I noticed the work fronting the planters outside One, Snow Hill. I’m glad it was saved, it’s a little bit of the Birmingham I remember.
Just like the horrid pub in the subway, The Brown Derby. That was a shocker.
One artwork is still missing, though, and used to stand on the grass above street level on St. Chads; it was a metal, full size child’s swing, captured and welded in multiple stages of movement as if caught in stop motion photography. It was brilliant. Anyone know what happened to that?
February 26th – In Birmingham at twilight, I was without any kind of tripod, so practiced a steady hand. I used to pass through Colmore a lot, but in recent years barely at all. When I was here a lot, there was a Somerfield where the Costa is, the Waitrose hadn’t been built and the Sainsbury’s was a Marks and Spencer. It was never this handsome at dusk, either; several of the office blocks here are relatively new.
Like Walsall, Birmingham is not mine anymore; places I was familiar with, things I remember, bars, cafes and shops I haunted long gone. Yet I still feel at home here.
Unlike Walsall, change has always been Birmingham’s modus operandi. And it’s getting better and better at it.
May 9th – I popped into Birmingham to run a few errands and cycled in via Roman Road, Sutton Park, and then onto the North Birmingham Cycleway down past Witton Lakes. I returned via Plants Brook and Sutton, but more on that later.
I had business up at Constitution Hill, and on the way, I remembered these odd utility blockhouses marooned in the centre of the recently rebuilt St. Chad’s Circus. These substation-like buildings are the one solid remnant of the old subterranean subway complex; overlooked by the Catholic Cathedral, they are a chilling reminder of the cold war.
They are plant and ventilation installations for Anchor Exchange, a huge, sprawling, underground nuclear blast-proof telecommunications exchange beneath the streets of Birmingham. Mostly now abandoned, Anchor only exists as cable tunnels, having been rendered obsolete by the end of the communist threat and advent of the internet.
Anchor was built at the same time as Birmingham built the inner ring road, or ‘concrete collar’; the hated gyratory system that consisted of flyovers and tunnels called queensways. Birmingham City Council have spent 20 years now destroying the concrete collar, and putting traffic on the same level as the human city, but Anchor is still ever-present.
There were several entrance points to Anchor from these tunnels, and the complex was an open secret for decades.
It’s telling that long after its usefulness ended, Anchor still requires maintenance and support; this closed stairwell with it’s original rails on the right and peculiar textured facing is one of the only pieces of evidence left on the surface, belying what lies beneath.
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