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Five Ways is an area of Central Birmingham, England. It takes its name from a major road junction, now a busy roundabout (with pedestrian subways through a traffic island) to the south-west of the city centre which lies at the outward end of Broad Street, where the Birmingham Middle ring road crosses the start of the A456 (Hagley Road).
The name of Five Ways dates back to 1565, when roads leading to Harborne and Halesowen were recorded as being located there. [1] Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, who lived at Five Ways until 1785, describes the origins of its name as a result of the location being the junction of five roadways. [2]
Five Ways was disturnpiked in 1841, after disputes over the repair of the roadways in the area. [3] It was the former home of King Edward VI Five Ways School, [4] before it relocated to its present site in Bartley Green. Five Ways railway station is located on the Cross-City Line. It opened in 1884 to replace the Granville Street station and closed in 1944, reopening in 1978. The old station building survives as offices on Islington Row. The West Midlands Metro light rail system from the city centre along Broad Street, passes through the Five Ways underpass and into Hagley Road. [5]
On 4 June 1862, a memorial to Joseph Sturge (which originally incorporated drinking fountains) was unveiled in front of a crowd of 12,000. [6] The sculptor was John Thomas, whom Sir Charles Barry had employed as stone and wood carver on the former King Edward's Grammar School at Five Ways. In 2006/7, a partnership of the Birmingham Civic Society, Birmingham City Council and the Sturge family saw the statue restored in time for the 200th anniversary of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. A civic ceremony that formally rededicated the statue was held on 24 March 2007; and an interpretation board, giving details of Sturge's life, was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham. The statue is grade II listed. [7]
Buildings also located at Five Ways include Philip Chatwin's Lloyds Bank (1908-9) and the Marriott Hotel (formerly the Swallow Hotel, and before that Tube Investments House), which was expected to receive a five-star rating when opened to rival the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Broad Street; however, it was unable to achieve this. [8] The building was built in 1957 to a design by Cotton, Ballard & Blow. [9] It is now a Grade B locally listed building. [10]
Five Ways is a major commercial area of Birmingham city centre. The area began to develop in the early 1960s when Birmingham's business centre expanded westwards towards Edgbaston, along Broad Street and Hagley Road. Calthorpe Estates, the landowners, started various schemes to encourage highrise construction in the area and to develop it into a business centre. One of the first developments here was Five Ways Shopping Centre, with Auchinleck House above it. [11] It consists of a traffic-free piazza with ground floor retail, an indoor market area, a car park on the second floor and the 10-storey Auchinleck House, which is named after Claude Auchinleck, with office accommodation. Designed by J. Seymour Harris & Partners, it was completed in 1962. [11] On the side of Auchinleck House was a mural by Trewin Copplestone which was illuminated at night. This was removed, though another mural by that artist remains in the courtyard. Other developments in the near vicinity of Five Ways include Five Ways House on Islington Row, designed by Cotton, Ballard & Blow, and the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce building, by John Madin. [12] Five Ways House was the location of the Ministry of Public Building and Works' library. [13]
Other highrise buildings that were constructed later on include:
The Department for Work and Pensions has branches at Five Ways. The former Birmingham Children's Hospital site is now the Broadway Plaza entertainment complex. Completed in the early 2000s, it cost £80 million and consists of leisure, retail and residential space. [14] Nearby is a 12-screen Cineworld cinema complex, which also contains restaurants, clubs and a casino (Grosvenor Casino). [15] The recent development was managed by Richardson Developments (responsible for the nearby Broad Street Tower) and cost £50 million. The listed public house on the corner of Bishopsgate Street and Tennant Street, currently known as 'The Bull's Head', was fully restored as part of the development. [16] It has an approximate total area of 200,000 square feet (18,580 sq. m.). [17]
In 2012, it was announced that property developer SevenCapital, along with Australian hospitality chain StayWell Group, would be transforming empty office building Auchinleck House into a 253-bedroom Park Regis Hotel, [18] making it the brand's first Park Regis hotel in Europe. Work commenced on the 2.3-acre site in 2014, with contractor Colmore Tang Construction appointed to complete the £50 million scheme which was to include the addition of a steel-and-glass sky bar and restaurant to the roof of the existing building. The four-star hotel opened its doors to guests on Tuesday 29 March 2016. [19] In March 2016, it was announced that former Ivy head chef Des McDonald would be opening a £3 million Japanese restaurant on the 16th floor of the Park Regis Hotel called Rofuto, the Japanese word for 'loft'. This was to sit alongside a sake and cocktail lounge named Kurabu. [20]
In 2014, developer SevenCapital announced that it had purchased No.1 Hagley Road, also known as Metropolitan House, with the intention to transform the John Madin-designed building into 271 apartments under the Government's permitted development rights. All of the apartments sold within five months of the developer purchasing the building. [21] Construction was completed on the site in March 2016. In 2014, SevenCapital also purchased the Broadway building at Five Ways from the Glanmore Property Fund for £15 million, and has since redeveloped parts of the building into 250 apartments. [22]
In October 2017 SevenCapital was granted permission to build a 17-storey, 228 bedroom luxury apartment development, named St Martin's Place adjacent to the Park Regis hotel. Completed in 2021, the development is Birmingham's first residence to offer residents hotel services.[ citation needed ]
Islington is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy High Street, Upper Street, Essex Road, and Southgate Road to the east.
Broad Street is a major thoroughfare and popular nightspot centre in Central Birmingham, England. Traditionally, Broad Street was considered to be outside Birmingham City Centre, but as the city centre expanded with the removal of the Inner Ring Road, Broad Street has been incorporated into the new Westside district of the city centre due to its position within the A4540 road.
Centenary Square is a public square on the north side of Broad Street in Birmingham, England, named in 1989 to commemorate the centenary of Birmingham achieving city status. The area was an industrial area of small workshops and canal wharves before it was purchased by the council in the 1920s for the creation of a grand civic centre scheme to include museums, council offices, cathedral and opera house. The scheme was abandoned after the arrival of World War II with only the Hall of Memory and half of the planned Baskerville House complete. After the war the scheme was revived in a simpler form however the council never managed to implement the design.
Birmingham Central Library was the main public library in Birmingham, England, from 1974 until 2013, replacing a library opened in 1865 and rebuilt in 1882. For a time the largest non-national library in Europe, it closed on 29 June 2013 and was replaced by the Library of Birmingham. The building was demolished in 2016, after 41 years, as part of the redevelopment of Paradise Circus by Argent Group. Designed by architect John Madin in the brutalist style, the library was part of an ambitious development project by Birmingham City Council to create a civic centre on its new Inner Ring Road system; however, for economic reasons significant parts of the master plan were not completed, and quality was reduced on materials as an economic measure. Two previous libraries occupied the adjacent site before Madin's library opened in 1974. The previous library, designed by John Henry Chamberlain, opened in 1883 and featured a tall clerestoried reading room. It was demolished in 1974 after the new library had opened.
Edgbaston is a suburb of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. It lies immediately south-west of Birmingham city centre, and was historically in Warwickshire. The wards of Edgbaston and North Edgbaston had a combined population of 42,295 at the 2021 census.
John Hardcastle Dalton Madin was an English architect. His company, known as John H D Madin & Partners from 1962 and the John Madin Design Group from 1968, was active in Birmingham for over 30 years.
Although Birmingham in England has existed as a settlement for over a thousand years, today's city is overwhelmingly a product of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, with little surviving from its early history. As it has expanded, it has acquired a variety of architectural styles. Buildings of most modern architectural styles in the United Kingdom are located in Birmingham. In recent years, Birmingham was one of the first cities to exhibit the blobitecture style with the construction of the Selfridges store at the Bullring Shopping Centre.
The Big City Plan is a major development plan for the city centre of Birmingham, England.
Five Ways Tower was a 23-storey commercial building, completed in 1979, on a 2.1-acre (8,500 m2) prime site located in the Birmingham City Centre by the corner of Frederick Road and Islington Road, near to the Five Ways roundabout and close to Five Ways Station, at the gateway to the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England.
Metropolitan House, also known as 1 Hagley Road, is a commercial building that has been developed into apartments in Birmingham, England. It is situated on the A456 Hagley Road at Five Ways. It was designed by John Madin.
Edgbaston House was a highrise commercial building in Duchess Place, Birmingham. It was built by Laing Development Co Ltd. and the consulting engineers were Ove Arup. Construction cost £1,720,000. It was the result of work by Calthorpe Estates to attract businesses to the Hagley Road and Five Ways by promoting the construction of office blocks there. It is part of the Duchess Place estate which consists of office blocks totalling 200,000 sq ft (19,000 m2). They are owned by the Kenmore Group, who acquired the estate from Chelsfield.
As with any large town or city, food and drink has played an important role in the commerce and culture of Birmingham, England.
The A4540 is a ring road in Birmingham, England, also known as the Middle Ring Road, or the Middleway. It runs around the centre of the city at a distance of approximately 1 mile (1.6 km). Birmingham City Centre is the area within this ring road. The ring road was planned and designed by Herbert Manzoni. It is now simply known as the Ring Road due to the removal of the old Inner Ring Road.
Baskerville House, previously called the Civic Centre, is a former civic building in Centenary Square, Birmingham, England. After serving as offices for the Birmingham City Council, it was extended with additional floors in 2007.
Birmingham Civic Society is a voluntary body in Birmingham, England, and is registered with the Civic Trust.
This article is intended to show a timeline of events in the History of Birmingham, England, with a particular focus on the events, people or places that are covered in Wikipedia articles.
Birmingham city centre, also known as Central Birmingham, is the central business district of Birmingham, England. The area was historically in Warwickshire. Following the removal of the Inner Ring Road, the city centre is now defined as being the area within the Middle Ring Road. The city centre is undergoing massive redevelopment with the Big City Plan, which means there are now nine emerging districts and the city centre is approximately five times bigger.
Paradise, formerly named Paradise Circus, is the name given to an area of approximately 7 hectares in Birmingham city centre between Chamberlain and Centenary Squares. The area has been part of the civic centre of Birmingham, England since the 19th century when it contained buildings such as the Town Hall, Mason Science College, Birmingham and Midland Institute buildings and Central Library. The site was redeveloped from 1960 to 1975 into the present Paradise Circus based within a roundabout on the Inner Ring Road system containing a new Central Library and School of Music. From 2015, Argent Group will redevelop the area into new mixed use buildings and public squares.
Calthorpe Park is a public park in Birmingham, England, created in 1857 and managed by Birmingham City Council.
The Birmingham International Marathon was a long-distance running event held in Birmingham, UK. It formed part of the Great Run British Marathon Series. The first event was held on 15 October 2017, the same day as the existing Great Birmingham Run in the city centre. The event was cancelled the following year, with organisers blaming the city's ongoing roadworks.
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