Former ATV Headquarters - Alpha Tower

Designed by George Marsh and opened in 1973, the 328ft Alpha Tower at the junction of Broad Street and Suffolk Street was built as the flagship headquarters of the ITV regional televison franchise company ATV (Associated Television) who held the Midlands region broadcasting franchise from 1956 until 1982 when it passed to Central Television.

The 200,000 sq ft of office space contained within Alpha Tower formed part of the hub of the ATV television network adjoining their ATV Centre studios on Broad Street, a connection walkway to which was built from Alpha Tower following its completion. Sadly with the demise of ATV in 1982, and of its successor Central Television during the 1990s, Alpha Tower was gradually abandoned.

However, Alpha Tower now sits at the heart of the £400m Arena Central development project being undertaken by Miller Developments and Bridgehouse Capital which aims to clear the area and create a central square around which will be yet more offices, restaurants and ‘living space’ etc etc. The good news, for once, is that – despite the best efforst of Alpha Tower’s owners at the time – in 2002 Alpha Tower was granted Grade A locally listed status and thus its future was assured inspite of all around it facing the bulldozer.

Birmingham Assay Office - Newhall Street

Opening in 1773 following the Hallmarking Act, the purpose of the Birmingham Assay Office was to validate the quality of the previous metal used and to hallmark the item to attest to this measure having been validated (the hallmark indicating the maker and date of item and the anchor symbol indicating the Birmingham Assay Office).  With a flourishing ‘Jewellery Quarter’ at Hockley, the Assay Office was destined to be an increasingly busy place and, interestingly, its first customer was Matthew Boulton who had tirelessly campaigned for the opening of a local Assay Office due to the restrictive practice of having to send all products to London to be assayed.

In 1877, the Assay Office moved to its current location on the corner of Newhall Street and Charlotte Street – opposite the Elkington’s Silver Electroplating Works that was later to become home to the Birmingham Museum of Science and Industry.

An enduring success story in the history of Birmingham, the Assay Office in Newhall Street is today the largest in the World handling in excess of 12 million precious metal items a year!

Birmingham Stock Exchange, Margaret Street / Great Charles Street

Due to Birmingham’s flurishing industry and growing reputation as a centre of commerce, a regional Birmingham Stock Exchange was setup in 1845 through the Birmingham Stock Exchange Association which met in a variety of venues in the City Centre before coming to rest in the building that is seen above in 1928, the year of its building during the City’s Art Nouvea architectural period.

In 1971 the Birmingham Stock Exchange, along with other regional exchanges, was absorbed into the London Stock Exchange and the organisation became a token extension of that organisation until the late 1980s.

The financial theme has been preserved however, with the building curently occupied by EFG Private Bank Limited and their stockbroking division EFG Harris Allday.

ThinkTank - Eastside, City Centre/Aston 26/05/06

The Eastside development is a phased regeneration project aimed at revitalising a 420 acre tract of land immediately to the East of the City Centre, largely encompassed within a triangle formed by Curzon Street, Lawley Middleway and Jennens Lane at a cost of £6bn.

One of the first signs of the development, Millennium Point on Curzon Street which opened in 2001 and houses the Birmingham Science Museum amongst its ‘ThinkTank’ facilities, can be seen above. What is also interesting here is the great contrast between the old and the new: to the left of the shot is a derelict workshop on Grosvenor Street which sits quite uncomfortably next to the ’space age’ stylings of Millennium Point.

The proposed redevelopment encompasses the old favourites of offices, bars & restaurants, open spaces/parks and ‘innovative centres of technology’, city apartments etc . . . Now, not wanting to appear at all curmudgeonly or standing in the way of ‘progress’ but there does seem to be an awful lot of the above list already in Birmingham, a fair proportion of it vacant, and the laudible outpourings of the Council that they are developing an ‘area of inclusion for local people . . . benefiting the local community etc . . .’ can be viewed with a more sceptical eye: the extent to which Brindley Place apartments, the shops of the Mailbox, and the million and one bars on Broad Street have benefited the people of Ladywood and its surroundings being a moot point.

However, that aside, the area once provided for a fascinating walk as it was an industrial ghost town with all the roads lined with a variety of Victorian industrial premises (and some more recent), which had been the subject of a mass compulsory purchase order and were all ‘Acquired by Advantage West Midlands’ – the Regional Development Agency.  To attest to that point I have posted a selection of photographs of the area below taken in 2006.

BBC Pebble Mill - Pebble Mill Road, Edgbaston 14/08/05

The BBC’s Pebble Mill complex opened in 1971 on a 6 acre site and was the hub of regional programming – including the popular Pebble Mill at 1 show which ran from 1973 to 1986 along with regional news programmes and Gardening Today for which the BBC also ‘annexed’ part of Kings Heath Park.

However, as with the majority of 1960/70s constructions, they were far from structurally perfect and Pebble Mill suffered from more than its fair share of flaws. In addition to this, the shift in programming from cosy studio sets to outside/mobile broadcasting left the need for the vast studio complex shrinking coupled with advances in IT meaning most of the work of the BBC in the region could be accomplished in a much smaller, high-tech environment.

In 2004, the inevitable happened and the BBC announced it would be moving to new premises at the Mailbox in the City Centre. Advantage West Midlands, the Regional Development Agency, acquired the site from the BBC and promptly set about demolishing and clearing the site to make way for a technology and science park . . . which has yet to be fully realised.

Not one of the more aesthetically pleasing structures in the region, it was nevertheless a landmark structure and, through its connection with television and radio, one of the most famous.