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Colmore Row Conservation Area
Overview Colmore Row Conservation Area
The Colmore Row Conservation Area straddles the Business Quarter and the Retail Quarter in central Birmingham. Colmore Row provides a visual axis between Birmingham Cathedral and the Council House in Victoria Square. The Conservation Area also includes Birmingham Town Hall, Chamberlain Square and the surrounding street pattern.
As such, it contains some of the most attractive townscape in the city and includes many listed Victorian and Edwardian buildings such as the School of Art on Margaret Street, the Bell Edison Building on Newhall Street and the old Midland Bank on New Street.
Churches in the Colmore Row Conservation Area
Birmingham CE Cathedral
Birmingham Cathedral is located on Colmore Row; it was built as a parish church by Thomas Archer in 1715 and only became a cathedral when the Birmingham diocese was created in 1904.
Birmingham Cathedral is built in brick and faced with stone; the design was inspired by the 17th century Italian architect Bernini and features some typical baroque characteristics: namely, the convex west tower, dome, lantern, parapets, balustrades and rooftop urns.
The church was altered in the late 19th century when JA Chatwin enlarged the chancel and added a semi-circular apse. The interior features stained glass by Edward Burne-Jones, an organ case by Thomas Schwarbrick and chancel rails in the style of Tijou.
T 0121 262 1840 Address: Colmore Row B3 2QB
Landmark Churches Colmore Row Conservation Area Birmingham Cathedral Website
Listed Secular Buildings in the Colmore Row Conservation Area
Bell Edison Telephone Exchange
The Bell Edison Telephone Building stands at the junction of Edmund Street and Newhall Street. This Venetian Gothic office block was built in red-brick and terracotta by Chamberlain & Martin in 1897; the exterior features elaborate decorative mouldings.
The Bell Edison Building contained the central telephone exchange from 1897 to 1936. The National Telephone logo can still be seen by the entrance. The basement was a nuclear bunker in the 1950's.
Links: Business Quarter Secular Listed Buildings
Big Brum (1885) forms part of the Council House Extension on Chamberlain Square. It is a 46-metre clock tower built in stone with a tiled roof to a design by Yeoville Thomason.
The clock, whose Westminster chimes can be heard throughout the city centre, has a 4.5 metre pendulum.
Links: Business Quarter Secular Listed Buildings
The Council House (1874-79) in Victoria Square was designed by Yeoville Thomasen. The main facade features a three-bay central portico flanked by two symmetrical eight-bay wings; these terminate in protruding outer bays capped by segmental pediments. The dome, lantern and spire above the apex of the central portico unify the design.
The Council House contains offices, committee rooms, the Council Chamber, Mayoral Suite, Banqueting Hall and a grand staircase that ascends into the dome.
Links: Business Quarter Secular Listed Buildings
The Eagle Insurance Office on Colmore Row was built in 1900 to a design by William Lethaby. The building features several classical touches such as the pilasters placed between the windows and the segmental and triangular pediments above the Romanesque frieze on the third floor.
However, a ground floor window flanked by twin doorways has replaced the traditional central portico and the architect has introduced an innovative chequered facade and eagle sculpture on the attic storey.
Links: Secular Listed Buildings Business Quarter
The former Queens College (circa 1843) was redeveloped as an office block in the 1920's after its academic departments relocated to Edgbaston. Its magnificent facade, which was preserved, features an ogee arch and canopied niche above the main entrance; the niche contains a splendid statue of Queen Victoria.
Links: Secular Listed Buildings Business Quarter
This building at 98 Edmund Street is the former Birmingham School Board Office designed by Chamberlain and Martin. It was built in red-brick with terracotta and stone dressings in 1875.
Links: Business Quarter Colmore Row Conservation Area
The main facade of the Birmingham School of Art is on Margaret Street; its side elevations are on Cornwall Street and Edmund Street.
Designed by Chamberlain and Martin in their Decorated Gothic Style, the building was constructed in red-brick and terracotta in 1881-85.
There are 3 asymmetrical gables on the main facade: the markedly taller right gable contains one three-lancet roundrel; the left has a roundrel and art nouveau foliage; the central: a mosaic above trefoil lancets;
A splendid tiled frieze of lilies and sunflowers runs around the exterior; the interior features carved capitals, mosaic floors and stained-glass.
Links: Secular Listed Buildings Colmore Row Conservation Area
The Town Hall was built in brick and faced with Anglesey marble in 1832-34. It is a "peripteral temple" being a rectangular structure seated on a rusticated podium with an external Corinthian colonnade.
The design was inspired by the ruined temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome. However, the architects, Joseph Hansom and Edward Welch, were bankrupted by delays caused by structural problems and the project was completed by their rival Charles Edge.
Links: Business Quarter Colmore Row Conservation Area
The Union Club at the corner of Colmore Row and Newhall Street was designed by Yeoville Thomasen and built in stone in the late 1860's.
The interior has been redeveloped as offices but the facade has been preserved; it features a rusticated ground floor with an open Corinthian porch, triangular and segmental pediments, a foliage frieze beneath the cornice line and a roof balustrade with urns.
Links: Secular Listed Buildings Colmore Row Conservation Area
Public Art in the Colmore Row Conservation Area
The Chamberlain Memorial, at the centre of Chamberlain Square, is a Victorian Gothic monument with a twenty metre crocketted spire and corner pinnacles. The memorial celebrates Joseph Chamberlain who became a public hero during his Mayorship of 1873-1876. Amongst other things, Chamberlain successfully challenged vested interests that had blocked improvements to the water supply and, by doing so, dramatically reduced child mortality.
Charles Gore, the first Bishop of Birmingham, is commemorated by a statue outside the west door of Birmingham Cathedral on Colmore Row. Bishop Gore, who was an Anglo-Catholic, held the bishopric between 1905 and 1911.
There is a mosaic by Salviati of Venice in the central portico of the Council House in Victoria Square that features an allegory of Britannia rewarding the trades and manufactures of Birmingham by presenting them with scrolls of Stability and Power.
A statue of James Watt stands on a plinth outside the library at Chamberlain Square in the Business Quarter. It is the work of Alexander Munro and was completed in 1868, shortly before the fiftieth anniversary of Watt's death in 1819.
Chamberlain Square contains a statue of the philosopher and scientist, Joseph Priestley, who discovered oxygen and who is accordingly shown holding the letter "O". The statue is a bronze cast (circa 1951) of the original marble carved by Francis Williamson in 1874. Joseph Priestly was driven out of Birmingham in 1791 after a mob, outraged at his nonconformist views and support for the French Revolution, burnt down his mansion in Sparkbrook.
This famous statue of Queen Victoria on Victoria Square is in fact a 1951 bronze cast of the original created by Thomas Brock in 1900. It was unveiled on 10 January 1901, twelve days before Queen Victoria died.
The River is a mystical sculpture in Victoria Square that consists of two basins linked by a stepped terrace. The upper basin contains a statue of a cross-legged woman, known locally as the Floosie in the Jacuzzi, who represents life force. Water cascades from the upper basin to the lower basin, which contains two allegories of youth, and is inscribed with verses by T.S. Eliot which stress the temporary nature of existence.
A statue of the 19th century political reformer, Thomas Attwood, reclines on the steps outside the Central Library in Chamberlain Square. He has descended from his empty plinth to give a rousing speech at an open air rally but has dropped his despatch box whose contents flutter in the breeze.
The
Iron:Man in
Victoria Square, which was designed by Anthony Gormley, is supposed to
symbolise Birmingham's industrial past whilst asking questions about the
future of its blue collar workforce. The sculpture has a slight lean and
is supposed to oxidise. The moulding joints have been left intact.
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