Hockley, West Midlands

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Hockley
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Hockley
Location within the West Midlands
OS grid reference SP060879
Metropolitan borough
Shire county
Metropolitan county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Postcode district B18
Police West Midlands
Fire West Midlands
Ambulance West Midlands
List of places
UK
England
West Midlands
52°29′20″N1°54′47″W / 52.48898°N 1.91307°W / 52.48898; -1.91307
Flats in Hockley, on the border with Newtown. Teviot House, a tower block is on the left. Flats in Duddeston, Birmingham.jpg
Flats in Hockley, on the border with Newtown. Teviot House, a tower block is on the left.

Hockley is a central inner-city district in the city of Birmingham, England. It lies about one mile (1.5 kilometres) northwest of the city centre, and is served by the Jewellery Quarter station. Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter continues to thrive in Hockley, and much of the original architecture and small artisan workshops have survived intact.

Contents

Hockley is the location of the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter and Birmingham Mint. Vittoria Street in Hockley is home to Birmingham Institute of Art and Design's Jewellery School, and The Big Peg arts & crafts workshop cluster is nearby. Housing in the area is generally characterised by well-built Victorian villas and terraces.

The Hockley Flyover murals at the "Hockley flyover" road interchange are an exemplary example of brutalist late-modernist concrete architecture and are grade II listed. [1]

Politics

Hockley lies within the Ladywood formal district and the constituency of Birmingham Ladywood.

History

Hockley has been the centre of the city's jewellery industry since the mid-1830s, evolving out of the city's earlier button, pin, buckle and toy trades. The Quarter's strong growth quickly eclipsed the jewellery trade in nearby Derby, which faded away, and the Quarter made a large proportion of the British Empire's fine jewellery.

Hockley is the location of two important 19th-century cemeteries: Key Hill Cemetery, opened in 1836 as a nondenominational cemetery (in practice, largely nonconformist); and Warstone Lane Cemetery, opened in 1847, which was originally reserved for members of the established Church of England. [2]

Hockley was the first place in Birmingham to be connected to the city centre by a tram line, opened in 1873.

Kathleen Dayus, born in 1903 in Hockley, wrote about the area between 1982 and 2000 in a series of books now brought together under the title The Girl from Hockley.

Notable people from Hockley

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soho, West Midlands</span> Human settlement in England

Soho is an area that is in Central Birmingham and Smethwick, approximately 2 miles north west of Birmingham city centre on the A41. The name is an abbreviation of South House, denoting that it was located to the south of Handsworth. The section of the A41 separating Handsworth from Winson Green is known as Soho Road.

Ladywood is an inner-city district next to central Birmingham. Historically in Warwickshire, in June 2004, Birmingham City Council conducted a citywide "Ward Boundary Revision" to round-up the 39 Birmingham wards to 40. As a result of this, Ladywood Ward's boundaries were expanded to include the neighbouring areas of Hockley, Lee Bank and Birmingham city centre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Key Hill Cemetery</span> Cemetery in Birmingham, England

Key Hill Cemetery,, originally called Birmingham General Cemetery, is a cemetery in Hockley, Birmingham, England. It opened in 1836 as a nondenominational cemetery, and is the oldest cemetery, not being in a churchyard, in Birmingham. The principal entrance is on Icknield Street to the west, with a secondary entrance on Key Hill to the north. The cemetery contains the graves of many prominent members of Birmingham society in the late 19th century, to the extent that in 1915 E. H. Manning felt able to dub it "the Westminster Abbey of the Midlands".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewellery Quarter station</span> Railway station and tram stop in Birmingham, England

Jewellery Quarter station is a combined railway station and tram stop, situated in the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham, England. The station is served by West Midlands Trains, Chiltern Railways, and West Midlands Metro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewellery Quarter</span> Human settlement in England

The Jewellery Quarter is an area of central Birmingham, England, in the north-western area of Birmingham City Centre, with a population of 19,000 in a 1.07-square-kilometre (264-acre) area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hockley Heath</span> Human settlement in England

Hockley Heath is a large village and civil parish in the Arden area mostly within the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, West Midlands, England. It incorporates the hamlet of Nuthurst, and has a history dating back to the year 705 AD as a wood owned by Worcester Cathedral. The parish, known as Nuthurst cum Hockley Heath, is to the south of the West Midlands conurbation, 12 miles (19 km) southeast of Birmingham 5.5 miles (8.9 km) from Solihull town centre and 13 miles (21 km) north of Stratford-upon-Avon. The village forms part of the border with Warwickshire and the District of Stratford-on-Avon to the south, with some parts of the village on either side of the border. According to the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 6,771, being measured at the 2011 Census as 2,038.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Argent Centre</span> Offices in Birmingham, England

The Argent Centre is a Grade II* listed building on the corner of Frederick Street and Legge Road in the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Icknield Street School</span>

Icknield Street School, near the Hockley Flyover, north of the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, England, is a good example of a Birmingham board school. It is owned by Birmingham City Council.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of the Jewellery Quarter</span>

The Museum of the Jewellery Quarter is a museum at 75-79 Vyse Street in Hockley, Birmingham, England. It is one of the nine museums run by the Birmingham Museums Trust, the largest independent museums trust in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warstone Lane Cemetery</span> Cemetery in Birmingham, England

Warstone Lane Cemetery,, also called Brookfields Cemetery, Church of England Cemetery, or Mint Cemetery, is a cemetery dating from 1847 in Birmingham, England. It is one of two cemeteries in the city's Jewellery Quarter, in Hockley. It is no longer open to new burials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hockley railway station (West Midlands)</span> Former railway station in England

Hockley was an intermediate station on the Great Western Railway's London Paddington to Birkenhead via Birmingham Snow Hill line, England, serving the Hockley area of Birmingham. It was around one mile from Snow Hill station. Opened in 1854, it lasted for the duration of the line's original life, eventually closing with the line in 1972.

Newtown, also referred to as Aston New Town, is an inner city area of Birmingham, England, just to the north of the city centre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham city centre</span> City in the West Midlands, England

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.

Kate Dayus was an English writer from the West Midlands.

Smith and Pepper was a jewellery manufacturing firm in Birmingham, England, which traded between 1899 and 1981. The factory is now the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pen Museum</span> Museum recording the history of pen making

The Pen Museum is a museum in Birmingham, England, covering the history of Birmingham's steel pen trade. The only museum in the United Kingdom devoted to the history of the pen making industry, the Pen Museum explains how Birmingham became the centre of the world pen trade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham School of Jewellery</span> Jewellery school in Birmingham, England

Birmingham School of Jewellery, founded in 1890, is a jewellery school in Birmingham, England. Located on Vittoria Street in the city's Jewellery Quarter, it is the largest jewellery school in Europe. It is part of the Arts, Design and Media Faculty (ADM), a faculty of Birmingham City University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Ashford & Son building</span> Factory in Birmingham, England

The former Ashford & Sons factory in Birmingham, England is a Grade II* listed building in Arts & Crafts style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hockley Flyover murals</span> Public art in West Midlands, England

The Hockley Flyover murals are a series of concrete sculptures by William Mitchell in Hockley, Birmingham, England, constructed in 1968. Since 2022 they have been grade II listed. The murals are at the pedestrian concourse leading to an underpass below the B4100 road, "surrounded by" the A41 road, and also known as Hockley Circus underpass.

References

  1. Historic England. "William Mitchell murals in the pedestrian concourse of Hockley Flyover, Hockley Circus (1480347)". National Heritage List for England .
  2. McKenna, Joseph (1992). In The Midst of Life: a history of the burial grounds of Birmingham. Birmingham: Birmingham Library Services. ISBN   0-7093-0188-X.