(Image: Ben Abel; Curzon Street, an abandoned Birmingham railway station)
Brum’s reputation is on the rise. The UK’s second city is now home to pulsing nightlife, a world-class food scene, spectacular new architecture and art galleries that could rival London’s. For anyone who experienced the squalour and grit of the industrial boom years, this transformation must seem like a miracle. Gone are the grimy industrial yards, the decaying warehouses and empty lots. In their place are the signs of a successful city looking to the future.
But not all traces of the past can be so easily shaken off. Dotted across Birmingham are sporadic reminders of the city’s industrial days. Hidden out of sight of the churning crowds, these abandonments stand as reminders of the grim neglect that has permeated parts of many British industrial towns and cities over the decades. Here are 10 abandoned places in Birmingham that have yet to take their place in the new order.
St Gerard’s Orthopaedic Hospital for Children
(Images: Jason Kirkham – UK Urban Exploration)
In 1913, the low buildings of St Gerard’s Orthopaedic Hospital threw open their doors for the very first time. Designed to serve the Catholic poor of the nearby Boy’s Home, it was essentially a mercy mission, a way of dealing with the frightful neglect suffered by Birmingham’s penniless children. Yet no sooner had it started running that its mission was instantly diverted. Throughout the Great War, it served as a hospital for men wounded on the raging continent. Afterwards, it was repurposed as a tuberculosis sanatorium and never looked back.
Today, its broken rooms remain in remarkably good shape, considering how long ago it closed. Shut down in 1988, the this abandoned Birmingham landmark has held together much better than contemporary derelict places. Inside, much of the old furniture still remains, only now coated in a thick layer of dust and melancholy. It’s as if St Gerard’s Orthopaedic Hospital for Children lies waiting for patients who will never return.
Longbridge Tunnels
(Images: Jason Kirkham – UK Urban Exploration)
Venture underground in the city of Birmingham, and you may just find yourself walking through a forgotten, shadow world. Deep beneath the Longbridge factory lies a vast network of tunnels stretching out like a spider’s web to every corner of the city centre. Built during the dark days of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain, these forgotten tunnels were used by female munitions workers, working beyond the reach of the Luftwaffe’s bombs.
Known as ‘shadow factories’, these underground lairs employed tens of thousands of Brits during the war’s height. Twenty-six were active in Britain during the early 1940s, and were vital to the war effort. Following the conclusion of World War Two, the Longbridge Tunnels were mostly stripped down and abandoned. Fast forward to the present, and only a few remain; many of them earmarked for redevelopment rather than historic preservation.
Curzon Street Railway Station
(Images: Ben Abel)
The first thing that strikes you when you see the remains of the old Curzon Street railway station is that it doesn’t look like anything ever stood here. Closed as a station in 1966, it was demolished and converted into a parcel depot, which itself closed in 2006. Long since concreted and tarmacked over, it now resembles nothing so much as an endless, grey wasteland, terminating in the ornate, abandoned entrance hall.
For those who witnessed its grand opening in 1838, such a decline would have seemed impossible. The first passenger station connecting Birmingham with London, Curzon Street was intended to serve as a major artery for those travelling between the two cities. Yet within a decade it had been replaced. In 1848, construction began on a more centrally-located station: Birmingham New Street. By the turn of the 20th century, Curzon Street had been closed to all but freight.
Yet its legacy isn’t over. Britain’s HS2 rail project will terminate here, bringing back the trains and passengers. In the meantime, the abandoned Birmingham station’s entrance building still stands in all its faded glory. It’s also thought to be the oldest piece of monumental railway architecture in the world.
Abandoned Tunnels of GKN Shadow Factory
(Images: True British Metal)
Despite sharing a name with Britain’s underground manufacturing effort against the Germans, Birmingham’s abandoned GKN Shadow Factory is a very different beast. Run by a private company, it was responsible for supplying the UK with screws and nuts and bolts – during the First World War, it was estimated that half the screws in Britain came from this one factory. Such high-octane production required lots of space. Enter the underground factory.
Situated under the old Imperial factory, the tunnels are in reality just a vast partitioned basement. But what a basement. Stretching out over some 50 acres, this abandoned subterranean world once managed to hold 4,500 workers at its height. Now it merely holds memories and shadows, yet remains one of abandoned Birmingham’s most compelling locations.
Sandwell College (Chance Technical College)
(Images: Sam Tait)
Gloomy on the outside, monumental within, Birmingham’s abandoned Sandwell College (formerly Chance Technical College) is today one of the city’s most impressive abandoned places. Long a centrepiece of the Birmingham’s educational infrastructure, the college saw thousands upon thousands of pupils clatter through its doorways over the decades. Finally closed down in the recent past, it now stands empty, like the other abandoned Birmingham landmarks on this list.
Inside, many of the old classrooms are still intact, looking none the worse for wear for being deserted. Impressively, in the depths of Sandwell College, some of the old buildings are still completely intact; meaning you can easily stumble across spectacularly ornate sights like this one. Elsewhere, old equipment can still be found, forgotten by those who left when the college closed down. The effect is of a place of learning forever frozen in time; a tantalizing glimpse into lives once lived and now forgotten.
Abandoned Typhoo Tea Factory, Digbeth
(Images: Sam Tait)
Typhoo is one of Britain’s most-recognizable tea brands; a mainstay of builder’s cups and quaint household teapots. And this is where it all began: in a now abandoned Birmingham factory. Opened in 1926, the factory was bombed heavily in World War Two, rebuilt in the post-war years, and then finally abandoned after Typhoo was bought out. Now it stands as a glorious, industrial wreck within spitting distance of the iconic Selfridges building at the Birmingham Bullring.
From the outside, the abandoned Typhoo Tea factory undoubtedly looks grim. A mixture of redbrick and opaque glass, it is squat, flat and depressing. Inside, though, its abandoned state makes for a uniquely haunting atmosphere. Once crowded halls are now eerily empty, their floors scattered with debris. Shadowy corners lurk in the basement, and foliage is busy reclaiming much of the ground floor space. Exploring here is to enter a world of decay; one that just happens to have a significant historical connection with the evolution of Birmingham.
The Grand Hotel (Under Restoration)
(Images: Proj3ct M4yh3m)
The abandoned Birmingham Grand Hotel is an impressive combination of opulence and decay. A Grade II listed building dating to the Victorian era, it was the number one stop for those looking to visit Birmingham in luxury for decades. But what’s really spectacular about the now-empty building is how plush it still remains. Despite closing in 2002, the empty hotel still has the grand ceilings, deep carpets and expensive furniture to make you feel like you’re entering a world of unbridled riches.
The distribution of this is far from uniform. Many rooms have the classic stripped-out, decayed feel that infects most abandoned places in Birmingham and beyond. But in other areas, it can feel like you’re still wandering around a functioning hotel. The old ballroom, for example, still retains its ornate plasterwork and original light fittings, and many of the stairwells are as spotless as the day the Grand Hotel closed. The result is both spooky and surreal, as if all the staff and guests one day magically vanished, leaving no trace that they were ever there. Like several others on this list, Birmingham’s abandoned Grand Hotel is now under restoration.
Abandoned Palladium Cinema, Hockley
(Images: sj9966)
From the outside, the abandoned Palladium Cinema looks like the grimmest of all wrecks. A narrow, grimy white box that rises up high into the sky, it seems to cast a gloomy shadow over the surrounding street. Yet venture inside and its abandoned interior tells a different story. Even today, the ornate decorations and grand sweep of the auditorium can almost take your breath away.
Built in 1911, the cinema functioned for most of the first half of the 20th century, even being popular enough to expand in size in 1922. It wasn’t until the 1960s that business began to tail off and the screen was removed. Even then, it continued to draw crowds as a bingo space, right up until 1979. Then, on the cusp of the 1980s and a reviving British economy, it finally closed its doors. Nearly 40 years later, the abandoned Birmingham cinema’s doors remain closed.
Seen in the here and now, the Palladium is like an ancient insect trapped in amber; a fleeting snapshot of a once-vibrant time and place, now reduced to stasis.
Royalty Cinema, Harborne
(Images: Scrappy NW – website)
Unlike the Palladium, anyone approaching the Royalty cinema would know instantly that this was a grand place. The imposing entrance façade towers upwards, promising an experience beyond mere picture-going. Inside, stained glass windows and ornate lighting fixtures give the place an almost regal air. The auditorium itself is a work of art: vast, spectacularly decorated. Looking at these photos, it seems hard to believe anyone would ever abandon such a place.
Yet abandon it they did. Repeatedly. Originally built as a cinema in the 1930s, the Royalty closed its doors only 30 years later, in 1963. What followed was a stint as a Gala Bingo hall, before it was closed and reopened as a Mecca Bingo. Designated a Grade II listed building in 2011, it nonetheless shut up shop for good in 2012. Having been protected from demolition, however, we hoping it soon finds new life.
Abandoned Birmingham Central Fire Station (Renovated)
(Image: Adam Slater)
As the modern Selfridges store shows, Birmingham has never been a city afraid of strange and exciting architecture. When the Central Fire Station was built in the 1930s, its architects envisioned a bizarre mishmash of Art Deco, Neo-Classical, Modernist and Neo-Georgian influences. The result was an icon of the city centre, one nobody wanted to see demolished after it shut up shop in 2006. They got their wish. Following a brief period of emptiness, the abandoned fire station was renovated into a large number of student flats.
Thanks to its Grade II listed status, the Central Fire Station was able to retain most of its original features during the conversion process. Even the old red doors remain – a living reminder of times and emergencies gone by. Perhaps most-interesting is how the ballroom was preserved. Rather than carve it up with dividing walls, the developers inserted dozens of self-contained ‘living pods’ into the vast space.
The result is a surreal collection of rooms that are once normal student spaces, and simultaneously mere components of a great, preserved interwar hall. As adaptive reuse goes, this example is remarkably sensitive, retaining one of the most notable abandoned places in Birmingham for future generations.
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