1978 Postcard view of the Rotunda

Whilst the foreground today is totally unrecognisable from the 1978 postcard view above following the redevelopment of the Bull Ring Shopping Centre completed in 2003, the iconic Rotunda dominates the skyline to this day with its unique cylindrical construction proving one of, if not the only, enduring remnants of the 1960s redevelopment of the City.

Designed as commercial premises by James A. Roberts (to resemble a candle!) as part of the wider development of the Bull Ring Centre, the Rotunda was completed in 1965 comprising 25 floors of office space sitting on a podium housing Lloyds Bank and below that various retail units and the Mulberry Bush public House at ground level to the rear on St Martin’s Circus Queensway.

Whilst many of the structures built during the 1960s in Birmingham have been much derided for their brutal and less than aesthetically-pleasing architecture (including others designed by Roberts), over the years the Rotunda has been extensively used for promotional purposes and has come to somewhat symbolise Birmingham to such an extent that when plans were mooted to demolish the Rotunda ahead of the redevelopment of the Bull Ring Shopping Centre, a campaign to save the structure resulted in it attaining Grade II listed status in 2000; quite an achievement for a 265ft-high 1960s reinforced concrete tower block.

The Rotunda, however, hasn’t remained in situ unscathed over the decades. During 1974 the IRA planted a bomb in the Mulberry Bush public house, latterly renamed Bar St Martin, at the base of the structure killing 21 people which further cemented the structure in the history of the City and whilst causing considerable damage to the pub and shattering an extensive number of windows in the tower above, did not structurally dame the tower’s concrete core (from which the building derives its strength).

During the demolition and redevelopment of the Bull Ring Shopping Centre (subsequently Bullring) by then-owners London and Edinburgh Trust, begun in 2000, property development company Urban Splash submitted plansfor a change of use of the Rotunda from commercial to residential premises. Occupancy, or lack thereof, had always been an issue with the Rotunda as commercial premises and the proposal was accepted with work beginning on the £25m refurbishment in 2004 (the original construction of the Rotunda having cost £1m – equivalent to c£20m today). The refurbishment was finally completed in 2008 with the tower housing 234 (predominantly wedge-shaped) apartments and featuring a more high-tech glass-fronted facade.

Whilst my initial thoughts on the original proposal to convert the Rotunda to residental dwellings was ‘how on Earth will residents find furniture to fit a curved wall?’, I have to say that Urban Splash have done an exceptional job of sympathetically rejuvinating the exterior and completely gutting and reforming the interior and have thus ensured that the future of a building that has come to symbolise Birmingham is assured.

Shy back in the mid-1980s

Shy emerged from Brum band Trojan during the early 1980s and featured Tony Mills (vocals), Steve Harris (guitar), Andy Kelly (drums), Paddy McKenna (keyboards) and Roy Davis (bass) who replaced original bass player Mark Badrick. Playing a brand of 80s synth-led commercial rock the band gained a reasonable following and released a couple of albums – Once Bitten, Twice Shy (1983) and Brave the Storm (1985) – to a ripple of enthusiasm before 1987’s Excess All Areas gained the band a wider following in part due to the airplay gained for the single Break Down The Walls with was co-written with Don Dokken.

My first encounter with Birmingham rock band Shy was somewhat curious to say the least! I was about 15 and one of my teacher’s sons played bass in another Birmingham band called Hostage and, as I was an aspiring drummer at the time, said teacher recommended I pop along to the Railway Inn on Curzon Street to see them live. Having never attended a ‘proper’ gig I went along with some excitement and met the band and had a great time especially with the encore for which the band recruited Shy vocalist Tony Mills for a rendition of Judas Priest’s Exciter which was excellent. Post-show I plucked-up the courage to speak to Mr Mills and said ‘great cover of Exciter’, to which he replied ‘do me a f*ckin’ favour’ and walked-off: at 15 that was quite a snub. Fast forwarding 3-4 years, through another Birmingham rock band Marshall Law, I got the gig of being Shy drummer Andy Kelly’s drum roadie; it’s a funny old world!

The band tirelessly gigged and toured both in the UK and abroad during the late 1980s and my main recollections from that time being the band performing and impromptu version of Exciter during a sound check at the Duke Of York (following me voicing my first recollection of meeting Tony Mills), supporting Bon Jovi at the NEC and a two-night showcase at the Marquee during which the following incident still makes me smile. We were all staying at the Charles Dickens Hotel in London and the morning after the first night at the Marquee were having breakfast and a natter when Mr Mills, ever tactful, enquired “has anyone seem that big-nosed Jewish c*nt Levine this morning”, with reference to the band’s then-manager Neil Levine, which was immediately met by a very dour “good morning Tony” from aforementioned manager who had come up behind us unnoticed by Tony!

I have to confess that my time with Shy was great fun and they were a really top bunch of guys – especially guitarist Steve Harris who was one of the most humble, pleasant people you could wish to meet – with Tony Mills awe inspiringly good at off-the-cuff quips and one-liners (sometimes to his detriment, as above) and I’m not certain to this day quite why they never quite made the big-time; particularly following-on from the reasonable success of Access All Areas it was widely assumed that their 1989 follow-up Misspent Youth would build their reputation further but it never quite happened.

Over the years the line-up of Shy has changed with Tony Mills leaving, rejoining and leaving once more but the band are still very much together and worth checking out live as is a track called The Hunter from the Brave The Storm album which was one of my personal favourites back in the day.

Birmingham Central Library - Chamberlain Square (10/04/2009)

With its £193m replacement being constructed a mere few hundred yards away, the present incarnation (the third in total) seen above of Birmingham’s much-maligned Central Library’s days are numbered. Designed by Moseley-born architect John Madin and completed in 1974 the structure aesthetically has somewhat divided opinion with attempts being made in recent years to have the building listed being juxtaposed with the much reported comments of Prince Charles that it resembled somewhere books would be incinerated as opposed to stored and causing the City’s Director of Planning Clive Dutton to refer to it as a “concrete monstrosity“.

With its 5,000 visitors today and plethora of books, multimedia and specialist collection resources the Central Library certainly fulfils its primary purpose and no comment as to its appearance should detract from that. However, despite recent attempts to add to its aesthetic appeal with external artwork, the building remains a relatively high flyer in various ‘Uk’s Ugliest Building’ polls. Indeed if it is to be believed that Madin’s original plans saw the building constructed in budget-busting marble it still could be argued that the somewhat brutalist shape of the structure and rather minimalist use of externally viewable windows would still have led to much discontent.

As was mentioned earlier this particular incarnation of the Birmingham Central Library is the third to grace the City with the original burning down in the 19th century which was then replaced with two separate libraries including the Gothic-styled Birmingham Reference Library which opened in 1882. It is from here that one of the principle problems with the current library stems in that it sits at the heart of what was, and to an extent still is, a Bastian of Victorian/Gothic civic buildings. The Town Hall, the Council House, The Birmingham and Midland Institute, the Stock Exchange and the Birmingham School of Art are all around the part of the City occupied by the Central Library and are architecturally grandiose and fascinating structures (as are many around Margaret Street, Edmund Street with the ‘old’ library and Reference Library also in a similarly grand style) and then, for some reason of late 1960s urban regeneration it was seen as prudent to clear the way for placing an edifice of modernity right in the middle of them (and sweeping some such buildings aside in the process). It can be argued that this is one of the principle problems with the current Birmingham Central Library; its complete conflict with the architecture of that which surrounds it.

The new Birmingham Central Library under construction 20/05/10

Recalling the Library in the 1980s it also suffered from a sense of abandonment (as did many areas of the City Centre during the late-1970s to early 1980s) with Paradise Forum, over which it sits, forming a semi-derelict ‘wind tunnel’ until the restructuring of the roadway to the rear and its enclosure with doors at either end.

Whilst repeated attempts have been made to rejuvenate the site and its surroundings (including the equally woeful Council House Extension and Fletcher’s Walk sites), it appears that as Birmingham lurches forward into another phase of ‘mass regeneration’ (this time appearing to be trying to address the flaws of the 1960s and 1970s) the redevelopment of Paradise Circus and the adjacent Arena Central development are set to see the demolition of the current library and surrounding site with 2013 seeing the opening of the new Birmingham Central Library currently under construction on Broad Street.

Scene from Gangsters, Episode 3 at Snow Hill Station (1976)

Set in a period of heavy economic decline and large-scale urban regeneration, Gangsters originally began life as a BBC Play For Today broadcast 9th January 1975 focusing on the interrelations between an ex convict, a family of underworld brothers in the nightclub entertainment industry of Birmingham, an Asian ‘godfather’ and West Indian crime gang. This unlikely blend of elements was brought together for a one-off play by writer Philip Martin with production being undertaken by the BBC’s Pebble Mill studios during the fall of 1974. Such was the impact of the original play, the BBC commissioned 2 series of Gangsters which ran in 1976 and 1978 both centring around the criminal underworld of Birmingham and the central character of John Kline, played by the late Maurice Colbourne. Whilst the series itself did contain all the hallmarks synonymous today with 1970s regional productions (somewhat cheap looking studio sets, a la Crossroads, and oddly stiff acting performances from certain cast members – although it’s not quite apparent the extent of which was due to the somewhat surreal elements of the series as opposed to acting inadequacies per se), watching the programme today provides an insight into Birmingham during a great transitional period both physically and culturally.

During the mid-1970s the economic and industrial nature of Birmingham was changing rapidly. The great urban regeneration project that had gathered pace during the latter half of the 1960s that was transforming the City was coming to a close but was by no means finished. Whilst such City centre landmarks as the Bull Ring Shopping Centre and News Street Station were complete and the Inner Ring Road was speeding cars under the City through the Queensway tunnel network, much of the City Centre still lay derelict. Moore Street station and the vast Central Goods facility lay abandoned, a swathe of largely Victorian-built factories and workshops were scatter throughout the City Centre in various states of occupation/dereliction (in particular throughout the back streets towards Hockley including the now trendy-bar setting of St Paul’s Square) and slum/back-to-back housing’s days were numbered as clearance works around Nechells, Hockley and Aston were coming to a close. Thus Birmingham during that period echoed dereliction in many of its areas with the national economic turmoil of the period hastening the decline of what industry remained creating an urban wasteland of condemned housing and industrial premises, vast tracts of rubble-strewn land, disused railways and polluted and stagnant canals and the vast crumbling edifices of the warehouses and factories they once served; the area around what is now Brindley Place and Gas Street being prime examples.

Such was the Birmingham in which Gangsters was set and fortunately for the viewer today, the BBC made extensive use of location filming throughout the series which provides, over its twelve episodes, for a fascinating snapshot of the City at that time. Episodes 3 and 4, for example, feature a prolonged sequence filmed in the then-disused ex Great Western Railway’s Snow Hill Station (see scene above). Whilst the scene itself is the setting for a large-scale fight between two rival underworld gangs which takes place on the platforms, prior to the fight there is much footage of the lead character wandering around the site and post-fight some of the characters head-down into the underground subways and into the labyrinth of rooms and facilities that once housed the booking Hall and good/parcels offices which provides a fascinating insight into this long-gone station (the current station being a complete rebuild on the same site).

A considerable amount of the action takes place at several now well-known and regenerated locations – such as Broad Street and on the Inner City canal network (into which several cast members take dives during various episodes!) – and car chases around Spaghetti Junction, Digbeth and Lancaster Circus provide for fascinating glimpses of the City at that time including a chase through the now-decommissioned Central Fire Station.

Another striking element of the series lies in its cultural snapshot. The first series centres on John Kline and his ownership of the Maverick Club, a rather seedy cabaret club, which features a racist compere/comedian very much in the 1970s Bernard Manning style along with a rather self-deprecating Indian counterpart. It also presents us with a family of Brummie brothers who run various nightclubs and underworld activities and have obviously held sway in the City for many years but are now seeing their empire squeezed by West Indian and Asian gangs with even the IRA, far right extremists and a Chinese Triad adding to the mix from the end of the first series. Without wishing to get too deeply into what this all represents, the series does provide a time capsule of cultural upheaval in the City during the 1970s with many new and diverse cultures jostling for position and their place in a former and rapidly fading industrial powerhouse with racism and mistrust/misunderstanding prevalent with and between all cultures.

Whilst Gangsters may not quite be Birmingham’s answer to the Sweeney – although it did cause quite a stir at the time for its graphic voilence and subject matter – it does provide for a valuable record of the City’s zeitgeist and structural fabric during the 1970s and for that alone can be strongly recommended for those that recall those times or those that want to take a look into the past.

The keen-eyed amongst you will notice that the photograph above shows ‘the Dubliner’ however, in a past life this bar in Digbeth was known as The Barrel Organ and was a flourishing indie/alternative gig venue and drinking hole during the 1980s and early 1990s.

My introduction to the Barrel Organ came around 1986 when I’d just joined a local new wave band named Voice of Dissent and the other guys in the band took me to their favourite haunt for a drink. I was only 16 at the time and it was as much an eye-opener as a visit to Zig Zags some months previously! Upon entering through the door seen to the right of the above photograph, the room was L-shaped with the main drinking area immediately in front of you and to the left, a long ‘room’ with a stage at one end: the bar was also L-shaped and served both areas of the pub.

As a relatively inexperienced pub/club goer at the time I was rather overawed by the gothic and punk clientele drinking there and, silly as it sounds, a bit scared. Several months later I had joined another band called Lost Cause and my first gig with them was to be the Barrel Organ and I recall our rather jangly guitar indie didn’t go down that well with the Barrel Organ faithful but they applauded politely at appropriate pauses in the set!

It wasn’t really until I started working at Edwards Number 8 a year or so later that the Barrel Organ was added to my Brum drinking circuit. The licensee Steve Treanor and his oppo Cal (not sure of Cal’s title . . . if indeed he had one!) were frequent visitors to Eddie’s and I got to know them quite well and would pop in to the Barrel Organ from time to time and really tuned in to the place. At the time it was the epicentre of the gothic scene with a fair punk contingent who were, despite my initial juvenile misgivings, a fantastic crowd.

Regulars of the time may also remember the doormen who worked for Joe Estridge (such as Martin) and doorman come jack of all trades Fergie. The Barrel hosted many gigs too and most week nights a band could be caught there (Written in Yellow being on a lot as I recall) and had their resident sound engineer(s) Colin and Willie (Colin being a rather irascible character who wasn’t an ‘instant hit’ but rather grew on me over time as I got to know him and the desire to wrap everything I could lay my hands on around his head abated). As Steve’s long-left the pub it’s safe to say that the hours of the Barrel Organ were somewhat ‘flexible’ and I used to go there after finishing work at the Institute night club just over the road about 2.30 in the morning and drink there until 5 – 6am with Cal, Fergie and whoever else was around!

I’m not 100% certain as to when the Barrel Organ opened or closed: it seemed an ever-present on the Birmingham gig circuit and alternative scene and then one day I was driving past and it had become the Dubliner. I did bump into Steve Treanor mid-1990s who at that time had a backstreet pub in Newtown that was an absolute hoot and I seem to recall him running the Ship Ashore/Outrigger at some point too but don’t know his current whereabouts: I also ended up working with Cal’s mom and my mom worked with Steve’s sister for a while (funny old world!). If anyone wishes to share their memories of the Barrel please feel free to do so using the form below.

“That’s the place I wanna go” chirped the television advertising campaign in August 1990 for the grand opening of the Institute night club in Digbeth following a complete refurb of the Digbeth Institute building.

Originally built as an educational annexe to the nearby Carr’s Lane Congregational Church in 1908 the building had long-since passed its sell-by date as a religious institution by the time plans were mooted for its conversion into a night club. During the 1970s and 80s the Institute had seen use hosting wrestling matches and various other gatherings under the then-ownership of Birmingham City Council who saw it as a community resource and Civic Centre but under-investment had seen the building largely falling into disuse during the late 1980s.

My involvement with the club started around March 1990 following my departure from Edwards No8 night club when I spotted an ad looking for door staff at a new club opening later in the year. I attended an interview and had a tour of the work in progress refitting the interior of the vast building and was quite impressed – fortunately, so was the interviewer as they contacted me shortly afterwards to offer me a job!.

My memory serves me rather poorly regarding the opening of the club however I recall that prior to opening Richard Branson was touted as one of the business partners involved in the venture but as the opening night approached he’d dropped out and the club was to be operated under Chris Deith and a music publisher whose name escapes me. Chris Deith, the head doorman (another Chris), the manager Peter Marks and four door staff all arrived en masse from a club in which they worked in Wakefield with a firm idea of how to operate a club in Birmingham . . . an idea that was soon somewhat challenged.

The club itself was quite an achievement following a multi-million pound refit. It primarily consisted of two ‘clubs’: the Dance Factory at the ground floor, largely accessed from an entrance on Milk Street, and the main ‘venue’ on the first floor. The Dance Factory was fitted-out in an industrial style following the approach taken by the Hacienda in Manchester with metal catwalks surrounding the room and everything painted in grey with black and yellow hazard sriped painted everywhere. There was a small semi-circular bar at one end of the room and a restaurant at the other that originally had a Russian theme for some reason. The main venue room upstairs was a Mecca ballroom type of affair dominated by a dance floor with a stage at one end, A balcony around three sides of the room with two bars on the lower level and two bars on the upper level. The lighting rig in particular was outstanding and cost a fortune and featured lasers among its armoury and could be moved up and down and angled in many configurations from the lighting control desk that was positioned on the balcony. Such was the complexity of the rig that the club had its own lighting director, Kay Bottomley, who operated the huge system!

On the first floor too was a jazz bar called Take Five that featured live jazz from Andy Hamilton and also hosted karaoke nights. On the upper level of the club was also a private function room called the Celebration Suite and at the very top of the club was a small glass-fronted bar overlooking the main venue that functioned as a VIP bar. I’m not particularly easily impressed but having a tour of the club prior to opening was quite an exciting experience as it was vast and very expensively equipped.

Unfortunately, the club really failed to live up to expectations in a big way. The opening night was busy and various notaries of the Birmingham club scene, including my ‘old friends’ from Ansell’s Leisure, descended on the club along with a throng of punters to check out the new venue. However, my abiding memory was more of a gang of chaps trying to get into the club after being refused and forcing the front doors so hard that they caved in and we ended up with a line of Police on the door! This rather took the Wakefield contingent by surprise and they said they’d never seen anything like it. For those of us on the door from Brum, we knew they were in for many such occasions in Birmingham and this was certainly borne-out.

For a number of reasons, the club rather failed to hit the spot with Birmingham club goers – possibly its geographic locations away from the burgeoning night club and bar scene around John Bright Street and that emerging on Broad Street – and it really struggled to gain customers. In my opinion the management desperately tried to address the lack of customers by running lots of different ‘theme’ nights that drew-in totally the wrong kind of customers and in the process dragging the club down from its original concept as a ‘high class’ club to a rather violent gang-oriented club in a matter of months. During this process one night a huge gang fight broke out in the main venue room and such was the level of violence (and it was bad) the Wakefield contingent of the door staff refused to work there again!

This is not to say that we didn’t have some fun there and that there weren’t good nights. Many top acts played there (and always drew in a good crowd) and a good student night was run along with various other ‘indie’ nights organised by Brum promoter (and, a rarity in clubland, a top bloke) Dave Travis. Primal Scream, Paul Weller, Ride, the Soup Dragons etc all played there and big name bands playing at the NEC had their after show parties there too. I worked the door of the private function room for an INXS party and I recall some shenanigans during a Happy Mondays visit at the time too.

Sadly, with rapidly dwindling customers (and staff numbers) the club went into administration some 8-10 months after opening and new owners were being sought. By that time, I had refused to work all but the week day gig and indie nights and was working elsewhere on a weekend and felt my time to move-on had come. Shortly after I departed Andy Taylor of Duran Duran fame purchased the club and a new team of door staff came in along with new management and the club moved more into an all-night rave venue and, judging from some of the tales I heard from the door staff, I was lucky to escape when I did.

Since then the club has rather garnered a niche dance audience and gone through various ownerships and names (God’s Kitchen etc). In my opinion the lesson to be learnt from the period with which I was associated with the club is never assume that if you own a small, successful club in another town that you can come to Birmingham and repeat the process: it’s a whole different kettle of fish.

As I’m sure those who were there would recall, back in the mid-late 1980’s Birmingham had a burgeoning live music scene with many long-demised venues serving all manner of musical tastes with the plethora of live bands on the circuit at that time. Whilst the Railway in Curzon Street, the Barrel Organ in Digbeth and Edward’s Number 8 in John Bright Street are frequently cited and recalled as prime examples of the local gig ‘industry’ back in the day, one venue appears to have slipped from the radar; Mega’s Wine Bar on Old Square.

Whilst the name conjures-up images of trendy lounge lizards and laid-back jazz piano, Mega’s Wine Bar actually served-up a stream of local – and some not-so-local – indie, rock and alternative bands and was certainly a thriving gig venue on the circuit and was located above Mega-Active which, if memory serves me correctly, was a kind of indoor ’boutique’ market – that was located in the centre of the building seen above at the Junction with Corporation Street (to the right) and Old Square.

Gunlaw at Mega's Wine Bar (courtesy: Ken Worthing)

You entered Mega’s Wine Bar via a flight of stairs with the venue itself being a long narrow room. From the front of the room (imagine standing in it with your back to the windows fronting onto Old Square) there was a square-shaped seating area with tables occupying the front third of the venue and then the bar began on the left-hand side running parallel to a slightly raised seating area surrounded by a medium height wall/railing. As you walked along with the bar on your left the raised seating area ended just before a corridor at the end of the room to the toilets and in that little corner between the raised seating area and the walkway to the toilets was ‘the stage’. Not that it had a stage as such, just a corner clear of furniture!

The word ‘intimate’ is often overused when recounting gig venues of yesteryear but in the case of Mega’s Wine Bar it’s never been more apt! The place was small, very small, and an old friend (once of local bands Voice of Dissent and The Reason Is) contacted me recently who had played there, and who had seen some of my gigs there, and reminded me that at the end of the raised seating area – ie: immediately in front of the band onto the ’stage’ – was a gap in the walling through which audience members would walk to get to the toilets. Thus, numerous times throughout a gig the guitarist or frontman would have to stand aside (nearly always mid-tune) as someone squeezed past to get to the loo – or for their return journey: such was the unique nature of this arrangement that ironic applause for an inbound/outbound toilet seeker would often break out during their return and/or departure!

Unfortunately information is nigh-on impossible to come by as to when Mega’s Wine Bar was operational. I played there 1986/7 and am aware of bands playing there in 1988 but beyond that – and indeed before that – I would assume that it functioned merely as a wine bar: if anyone can tell me any different I’ll be pleased to revise this entry.

Some of the bands I recall from there were This Year, Sleepwalk, Mighty Mighty and the splendidly named Jesus Christ and the Six Disciples (of whom only one arrived for the gig with a drum machine that broke-down mid-way through the set!). Ken Worthing, guitarist with Gunlaw (www.kenworthing.co.uk) , kindly allowed me to use the poster above from a gig they played there back in the late 80’s which attests to the fact that I hadn’t dreamt the place up – so scant is the information attesting to its existence today I was beginning to wonder.

Mega’s Wine Bar was a great little venue with many peculiar quirks and it would be great to hear from anyone who played, or drank, there.

The Old Railway - Curzon Street

Sadly I haven’t really been able to find any information on this gem of a now demolished pub, other than to state the obvious that it was named in recognition of Curzon Street station which stood opposite the site until 1966 (and if recently unveiled high speed rail plans are forged ahead, may well again!).

My first recollection of the Old Railway was in 1985 when a teacher at my school – who knew I was learning to play drums and was into rock music – told me his son’s band Hostage were gigging at the pub and that he’d put me on the guest list! At 15 it was the first gig I’d ever been to and I’d never heard of Curzon Street but found my way there and it certainly confirmed my conviction that playing in bands was what I wanted to do. Several months later I found myself there once more to watch the first gig of a local band called Fayre Warning after bumping in to their bass player on a number 27 bus in West Heath.

The pub itself was quite run-down and consisted of a small bar connected by a short corridor, which could also be entered directly from the Curzon Street side of the building, to the room that used to house gigs. The venue part was small – I would estimate it held a couple of hundred standing people at the most – with a stage at one end, alcove for mixing desk the other, and bar the length of one side with a small ‘dressing room’ for bands accessed from behind the bar via a hatch at the stage end of the room.

Legend has it that Robert Plant and John Bonham from Led Zeppelin – and a whole host of other Brum-based musical notaries – frequented the place back in the 70s but during my time there I recall mostly local rock/metal acts, such as Shy, Briar and Tobruk, regularly gigging there and/or propping up the bar. I also attended an all-day rock festival there sometime around 1986/7 which was fun as I was working at Musical Exchanges then and so knew a lot of the musicians who were playing during the day.

Also in 1986/7 I played a gig there myself with my band Lost Cause (prophetically named) and I seem to recall that the landlady was called Gail and whose partner was a very amiable Rasta whose name escapes me!

Some time in the late 1980s I recall the Old Railway closing as a pub/gig venue and being turned into a Mexican Restaurant and by then Edwards Number 7 & 8 was in full swing as a rock gig venue and that was the end of my association with the place. I do, however, understand it reopened once more as the Old Railway towards the end of the 1990s but, as can be seen from the above photograph, is once again no more. Subject of a compulsory purchase order as part of the City’s Eastside redevelopment the pub, along with its surrounding area, lay derelict for a time until demolition began in late 2007.

If anyone reading this used to frequent the Old Railway, played there in bands, or has any information that would add to this article, please get in touch.

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.

ATV Centre Television Studios

As those with a good memory will recall, ITV’s output in the Midlands was once provided by ATV (Associated Television Ltd) from 1956 until 1982 when the franchise was won by the, some may argue (well, me), somewhat dismal Central Independent Television. To cement it’s base as ITV’s regional broadcaster for the Midlands (the company itself based in Elstree, London), and to avail itself of the coming of colour television, in 1969 ATV commissioned the construction of a purpose built studio complex on Broad Street in central Birmingham, promoted as “Britain’s first purpose built colour TV studio”.

ATV Centre produced many ITV classics over the years, not least children’s TV favourite Tiswas which was broadcast live from studio 3, and the long-running butt of many a joke; Crossroads! So entrenched was ATV in the region it also built the adjacent Alpha Tower as its Birmigham headquarters in 1973 which was linked to ATV Centre via a raised walkway.

With a shift in emphasis to location broadcasting, IBA-upheld criticism of a somewhat West Midlands focus in programming (largely ignoring the East of the region) leading to new studios being acquired in Nottingham along with Central’s stewardship axing many of the long-standing productions that were filmed there, ATV Centre’s activities began to shrink.

The view at the top of this page shows what was the studio’s canteen but by the early 1990s several of the studios had been mothballed and part of the building used as the Coast-to-Coast nightclub and Hudson Bay bar which occuppied the ground floor.

The studios were finally closed in 1997 with the majority of the complex lying dormant until 2009/10 when demolition work got underway, clearing the site for the forthcoming £400m Arena Central development which sees to develop the 7.6-acre site which includes the studios into offices, shops and restaurants (well, we certainly need more of them!).