Bordesley Green
| Bordesley Green | |
| Warwickshire | |
|---|---|
 South & City College Birmingham Bordesley Green Campus | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP105865 |
| Location: | 52°28’34"N, 1°50’38"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 33,937 (2011 (ward)) |
| Post town: | Birmingham |
| Postcode: | B9, B10 |
| Dialling code: | 0121 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Birmingham |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Birmingham Hodge Hill |
Bordesley Green is an inner-city area of Birmingham, Warwickshire about two miles east of the city centre. It also contains a road of the same name.
Heartlands Hospital is located in the eastern part of Bordesley Green. The area is also served by Yardley Green Medical Centre and Omnia Practice.
Kingfisher Country Park covers the River Cole recreation grounds which are partially covered by the area's boundaries.
History
The name of this part of Birmingham is derived from an ancient area of demesne pasture, listed in early records dating back to 1285 as La Grene de Bordeslei.[1]
The area began to be built up in 1834, with scattered developments from Bordesley along Bordesley Green from the junction of Cattell Road and Garrison Lane as far east as Blake Lane. By 1906 urban development had spread eastwards as far as Blakesland Street and Mansell Road and included a fire station and police station, both of which survive, though the fire station no longer serves its original purpose and the police station is now a hostel for homeless people.[2][3]
Many roads in Bordesley Green were built not long after the Boer War at the end of the 19th century and were named to commemorate the hundreds of soldiers from Birmingham that died in that war.[4] Examples include Pretoria Road, named after the capital of the Boer republic of the Transvaal; Churchill Road, after Winston Churchill who fought in the Boer War, was captured but escaped; Botha Road, named after the Boer general who became the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa; and Colonial Road.[5]
Many late-Victorian and Edwardian houses remain in Bordesley Green and much of the area has physically changed little since then.
Industrial Hub
At the turn of the twentieth century Bordesley Green had become a district noted for industry and manufacturing. It was the home from 1901 to 1920 of the Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company's motor cars and machine tools manufacturing plant.[6]
The National Telephone Company's depot in Fordrough Lane came to be one of the three major General Post Office (GPO) factories in Birmingham. The factory specialised in manual telephony, including factory repaired telephones, "candlestick" ‘phones, switchboards and associated components, and played a significant role in the development of the Colossus computer used to read encrypted German messages in World War II.[7]
In the 1960s, the HANDEL Nuclear Attack Warning equipment, known as the four-minute warning was manufactured in Bordesley Green, along with equipment for regional seats of government, which were part of Britain's civil defence preparations for nuclear war.[8]
Blitz
Bordesley Green was targeted during the Blitzkrieg with five raids hitting the area. The last German bomb to hit Birmingham landed on 24 April 1943 and hit Bordesley Green.[9]
The GPO factory was also hit by German bombing raids in 1940.[10]
Wildlife
Tumbling Pigeons
In the 1920s a Bordesley Green bus driver and pigeon fancier, William Penson,[11] noticed one of his birds perform a backflip while in flight, and through selective breeding produced the Roller and Tumbler breed of pigeon.[12] This breed is noted for its unique acrobatics while in flight and is used in ‘parlour rolling’ contests. Today there are hundreds of Birmingham Roller clubs around the world and fiercely fought competitions to pick the birds that perform the most dramatic tumbling.[13]
Geology
The bedrock geology of the area consists predominantly of Sidmouth Mudstone Formation. Sedimentary Bedrock formed approximately 228 to 250 million years ago in the Triassic Period. The local environment was previously dominated by hot deserts. The types of sedimentary rocks in the Bordesley area are fluvial, lacustrine and marine in origin. They would have been detrital, deposited in lagoons or shallow seas, where a hot, arid climate would have led to the precipitation of beds of evaporites.
The superficial deposits tend to be glaciofluvial in origin, Mid Pleistocene - Sand And Gravel. Superficial Deposits in area were formed up to 2 million years ago in the Quaternary Period. The Bordesley environment would have been dominated by ice age conditions. The deposits are detrital, generally coarse-grained, forming beds, channels, plains and fans associated with meltwater.[14]
Lost brook of Bordesley Green
Early maps of the area show a brook which extended from Shaw Hill down to Bordesley Green Road, which is now mostly submerged, with the exception of a small section which emerges from a culvert in Bordesley Green. It is called Washbrook. It starts up near Garrison Lane, then flows through the South African Estate, on through the allotments. It is open in Ward End Park then on into the River Tame at Bromford.[15]
Bordesley Village
Bordesley Green has a neighbouring village, Bordesley Village, offering considerably better housing. The village is often referred as a separate area, and attempts are being made to separate the two to distinguish the areas. The village is also home to the city's football team, Birmingham City F.C., built before the village was established from an old gypsy encampment and scrap yard. Recently, the village has seen several additions, becoming the hub of the city's new car sales, with premium firms such as Mercedes Benz, Audi & Infiniti, as well as Volkswagen & Seat and many more including motorcycle firms Heine Gericke & Triumph. The village is also served by several small shops, such as newsagents, a pharmacy and has its own dentist and doctors surgery. The village also caters for the needs of shoppers, offering a Morrisons supermarket & fuel station and Iceland, as well as fashion outlets such as JD, Bank, Topshop and other shops such as Toys R Us, Poundland, B&M and many more national companies within walking distance of the village.
The Village concept in Bordesley Green was the first "Ideal Village", built between 1908 and 1914 by Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin. The pair eventually went on to build Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire. The villages were a welcome relief to English cities at the time and the homes were built to high standards.
Daniels Road in Bordesley Green commemorates schoolteacher Francis Daniels. Originally from Ebley near Stroud, Daniels came to Birmingham in 1891 and soon saw the need to provide affordable social security for ordinary working people. With the Lord Mayor, Alderman William Kendrick as president and Daniels himself as general secretary, the Ideal Society was formed.
By 1910 the society had moved into housing provision and commenced the building of the Ideal Village at Bordesley Green, where Finnemore Road also commemorates an early chairman of the society, William Finnemore. The first houses to be built were in Drummond Road. The village, which was designed for artisan workers, has shops, a park and a school and a much lower density of housing than the nearby terraces.
St Paul's Mission, built in 1912 in Finnemore Road as a chapel of St Margaret's Ward End, was consecrated as a parish church in 1929. A new church was built c1970 in Belchers Lane behind the old, which was retained as the church hall. The church is now the centre of a community project embracing a number of different facilities and services.
In 1998 children from Bordesley Green Primary School discovered the origin of a badly damaged stone fountain in the Ideal Park which commemorates the rescue by a local boy of a drowning girl. On 7 May 1907 16-year-old cycle polisher, Harold Clayfield of 11 Ronald Road, jumped into a 5m deep clay pit at the junction of Belchers Lane and Bordesley Green to save 4-year-old, Florence Jones. The girl was saved, but non-swimmer Clayfield, drowned. His memorial was paid for by public subscription. Sadly Florence herself was to die only four years later as a result of playing with burning pieces of paper at her home in Green Lane.[16]
Public art
The area features public art with the installation of Ondré Nowakowski's Sleeping Iron Giant, a large head lying on its side on a mound near the St Andrew's football ground.
Skate park
Bordesley Green has one skate park, known locally as the Pod. It is popular with mini BMX Rocker riders.[17]
Bordesley Green Allotments
The historic Bordesley Green Allotments is a 25-acre site that is host to the Bordesley Green Forest garden[18] and in 2012 was the venue for the Birmingham Annual Gardening Show[19] which is normally held in Kings Heath Park.
Education
Primary schools
- Alston Junior and Infants Primary School
- Bordesley Green Junior and Infants Primary School
- Wyndcliffe Primary School
Secondary schools
- Bordesley Green Girls' School
- Saltley Academy
Further education
- South and City College Birmingham – Bordesley Green Campus
Health
- Heartlands Hospital
- Yardley Green Medical Centre
- Omnia Practice
Birmingham Wheels Park
Bordesley Green is home to Birmingham Wheels Park, a community motor sport facility that includes an oval race track, outdoor go-kart track, roller derby track, rally school and drifting track. Up to 5,000 people attended the oval track during its most popular stock car and banger racing meetings, while the speed skating team were multiple British champions in various age disciplines and the most successful roller speed club in the UK. In 2020, the operators announced that the site was under threat of closure due to failure to reach an agreement with the freeholders, Birmingham City Council, over plans to redevelop the area. The park closed for good on 31 October 2021.[20]
References
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Bordesley Green) |
- ↑ "Placenames Gazetteer". https://billdargue.jimdo.com/placenames-gazetteer-a-to-y/places-b/bordesley-green/.
- ↑ "The old fire station in Bordesley Green". http://www.firestations.org.uk/Station_Details.php?stn=Bordesley%20Green%20old%20fire%20station.
- ↑ "Old police station in Bordesley Green". https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/247068.
- ↑ "Birmingham Boer War Memorial". http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Warwickshire/BirminghamBoerWar.html.
- ↑ "Birmingham History". https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/street-name-origins.38459/.
- ↑ "In production : Adderley Park Wolseley Works". February 2017. https://www.aronline.co.uk/cars/wolseley/in-production-adderley-park-wolseley-works.
- ↑ "Birmingham's role in cracking the Nazi Enigma code". 18 August 2008. https://www.birminghampost.co.uk/news/local-news/birminghams-role-cracking-nazi-enigma-3956610.
- ↑ "GPO". http://www.michael-milsom.org.uk/mdm/personal/gpo.htm.
- ↑ "Birmingham in the Blitz: Where the bombs fell". 2 November 2010. https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/nostalgia/birmingham-in-the-blitz-where-the-bombs-fell-134700.
- ↑ "Birmingham History Forum". https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/post-office-factory-fordrough-lane.23944/.
- ↑ "THE BIRMINGHAM ROLLER PIGEON by William Penson". https://www.jedds.com/shop/the-birmingham-roller-pigeon-by-william-penson/.
- ↑ "Rolling and Tumbling in Pigeons". https://www.ufaw.org.uk/birds/pigeons-rolling-and-tumbling.
- ↑ "British Eccentrics - Maybe It Is Everyone Else Who Is Out Of Step". 13 October 2011. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-fleming/british-eccentrics-maybe-_b_1009989.html?guccounter=1.
- ↑ "Geology of Britain viewer | British Geological Survey (BGS)". http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain/home.html?location=b9.
- ↑ "OS Six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952". https://maps.nls.uk/view/101584678.
- ↑ "The Ideal Village". billdargue.jimdo.com. http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-news/2009/03/25/council-gives-up-on-bordesley-green-ideal-village-65233-23221410/.
- ↑ "Launch of 'The POD' and Skate Park". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBH3_KQAlqg.
- ↑ "Bordesley Green Forest Garden". https://www.facebook.com/BordesleyGreenForestGarden.
- ↑ "Birmingham Annual Gardening". BBC News. 16 August 2012. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-19286434.
- ↑ "Birmingham Wheels Park is to close after the city council won funding to regenerate the area". ITV Consumer Limited. 31 October 2021. https://www.itv.com/news/central/2021-10-31/birmingham-wheels-to-close-after-city-council-wins-money-to-redevelop-land.