Snowhill

Lloyd House is the headquarters and since 2017 Central station of the West Midlands Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing the West Midlands metropolitan county in the United Kingdom. The building also houses the office of the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner.The building sits on Snow Hill Queensway, at the junction with Colmore Circus Queensway and Weaman Street, in Birmingham city centre.

Birmingham Snow Hill, also known as Snow Hill station, is a railway station in Birmingham City Centre. It is one of the three main city-centre stations in Birmingham, along with Birmingham New Street and Birmingham Moor Street. Snow Hill was once the main station of the Great Western Railway in Birmingham and, at its height, it rivalled New Street station with competitive services to destinations including London Paddington, Wolverhampton Low Level, Birkenhead Woodside, Wales and South West England. The station has been rebuilt several times since the first station at Snow Hill, a temporary wooden structure, was opened in 1852; it was rebuilt as a permanent station in 1871 and then rebuilt again on a much grander scale during 1906–1912. The electrification of the main line from London to New Street in the 1960s saw New Street favoured over Snow Hill, most of whose services were withdrawn in the late 1960s. This led to the station's eventual closure in 1972 and its demolition five years later. After fifteen years of closure, a new Snow Hill station, the present incarnation, was built; it reopened in 1987. Today, most of the trains using Snow Hill are local services on the Snow Hill Lines, operated by West Midlands Railway, serving Worcester Shrub Hill, Kidderminster, Stourbridge Junction, Stratford-upon-Avon and Solihull. The only long-distance service using Snow Hill is to and from London Marylebone, operated by Chiltern Railways via the Chiltern Main Line. The present Snow Hill station has three platforms for National Rail trains. When it was originally reopened in 1987, it had four, but one was later converted in 1999 for use as a terminus for West Midlands Metro trams on the line from Wolverhampton. This tram terminus closed in October 2015, in order for the extension of the West Midlands Metro through Birmingham city centre to be connected; this included a dedicated embankment for trams alongside the station and included a new through stop serving Snow Hill.

One Snow Hill Plaza (also known as Kennedy Tower) is a highrise hotel in Birmingham, England. It is 72 metres (236 ft) tall and was completed in 1973. In 2013 the building was renovated and became a 224-room hotel under the brand Holiday Inn Express. It receives the name Kennedy Tower from the mural dedicated to John F. Kennedy which was located in Snow Hill Circus until it was moved in mid-2006. It was redeveloped and modernised externally in previous years to be better suited to the environment which it will be a part of which will see the construction of Snowhill, a major mixed-use development adjacent to Snow Hill station. It forms a prominent addition on the skyline when viewed from the north. In November 2007, Kenmore Property Ltd. announced plans to demolish the tower and replace it with a 118-metre (387 ft) office tower, by holding a public consultation for the proposal. The plans superseded an earlier proposal for a 12-storey office tower on the site 2 Snow Hill Plaza, adjacent to Lloyd House. The new tower was designed by Hamiltons Architects and provides 54,000 m2 (581,251 sq ft) of office space and 4,000 m2 (43,056 sq ft) of retail space. This would make it the largest office tower outside London. Construction was expected to start in 2009 and to be completed in 2011. However, Kenmore later applied for the scheme to be divided into two phases with the first phase being constructed on the site of 2 Snow Hill Plaza, allowing for the 118-metre (387 ft) tower to be constructed alongside at a later date. This was approved. However, in November 2009, Kenmore Property Group were placed into administration. Rob Caven and Martin Ellis of Grant Thornton were appointed joint administrators of 21 of Kenmore's companies, and joint receivers of two others. The Snow Hill Plaza site was formally put on the market by the administrators in March 2010.

West Midlands Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. The force covers an area of 348 square miles (900 km2) with 2.93 million inhabitants, which includes the cities of Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton and also the Black Country. In 2020, there were 6,846 officers, 484 police community support officers (PCSO), and 219 volunteer special constables.The force is led by Chief Constable Craig Guildford. The force area is divided into ten Local Policing Units (LPUs), each being served by four core policing teams – Response, Neighbourhood, Investigation and Community Action & Priority (CAPT) – with the support of a number of specialist crime teams. These specialist teams include CID, traffic and a firearms unit. West Midlands Police is a partner, alongside Staffordshire Police, in the Central Motorway Police Group. The force is party to a number of other resource sharing agreements including the National Police Air Service.

The Bishop's House in Birmingham, England was designed by Augustus Pugin as the residence of Thomas Walsh, the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Birmingham. It was situated opposite St Chad's Cathedral, on the corner of Bath Street and Weaman Street in Birmingham City Centre. A building of exceptional originality and adventurousness, it was Pugin's first attempt to adapt his gothic architectural style to form an urban architectural language, and it would become the most influential of all his architectural works. Its influence would be important in the development of the Ruskinian High Victorian Gothic pioneered by William Butterfield at All Saints, Margaret Street; its simple use of traditional materials saw the first emergence of the design philosophy that would later lead to Philip Webb's Red House and the origins of the Arts and Crafts Movement; and its functionalism marked the birth of the tradition of rational construction in architecture that was to dominate the modernist architecture of the 20th century. The house was designed in late 1840, with its overall arrangement being based on the courtyard houses of northern France, but with a strikingly original internal layout, taking a spiral route from the building's front door, all the way round all four sides of the building to the great hall, which was immediately above the main entrance to the right. Its elevations were "sheer, austere and disciplined" with little decoration apart from stone dressings and small areas of patterned brickwork. Pugin emphasised the buildings functionalism, noting "that convenience has dictated the design, and that the elevation has been left in that natural irregularity produced by the internal requirements to which we owe the picturesque effect of the ancient buildings." The quality of its brickwork was unprecedented in England at the time. The house's furniture was also designed by Pugin and was based on surviving mediaeval originals from the Bishop's Palace in Wells.The house was demolished in 1959, after Birmingham City Engineer Herbert Manzoni demanded that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham pay for any alterations to the city's inner ring road scheme that would be required to avoid the building's demolition. The chimneypiece and two chairs from the Bishop's House are now held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The Gun Quarter is a district of the city of Birmingham, England, which was for many years a centre of the world's gun-manufacturing industry, specialising in the production of military firearms and sporting guns. It is an industrial area to the north of the city centre, bounded by Steelhouse Lane, Shadwell Street and Loveday Street. The first recorded gun maker in Birmingham was in 1630, and locally made muskets were used in the English Civil War. By the 1690s Birmingham artisans were supplying guns for William III to equip the English Army (and successor British Army after 1707). The importance of the trade to the town grew rapidly throughout the 18th century, with large numbers of guns produced for the slave trade. The 19th century saw further expansion, with the Quarter meeting the demand for the Napoleonic Wars, Crimean War, American Civil War and the British Empire. During both the First and Second World Wars the area played a major role in the manufacture of small arms for the British Armed Forces. After the First World War demand fell; the need for skilled, specialised labour fell as the market became flooded with cheaper, machine-made guns, and gun manufacturing in the area began a slow decline. In the 1960s, a large part of the Gun Quarter was demolished by post-war town planners, with the area split in two by the construction of the Birmingham Inner Ring Road. Following the Big City Plan of 2008, the Gun Quarter is now a district within Birmingham City Centre. Many buildings in the area are disused but plans are in place for redevelopment including in Shadwell Street and Vesey Street.

The Metropolitan Cathedral Church and Basilica of Saint Chad is a Catholic cathedral in Birmingham, England. It is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Birmingham and is dedicated to Saint Chad of Mercia. Designed by Augustus Welby Pugin and substantially complete by 1841, St Chad's is one of the first four Catholic churches constructed after the English Reformation and was raised to cathedral status in 1852. It is one of only four minor basilicas in England (the others being Downside Abbey, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham and Corpus Christi Priory). St Chad's is a Grade II* listed building. The cathedral is located in a public greenspace near St Chad's Queensway, in central Birmingham. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Birmingham, currently Bernard Longley, and the dean is Monsignor Timothy Menezes.

Colmore Gate is an office and retail building in Birmingham, England. An example of early 1990s architecture by the Seymour Harris Partnership, the lift shaft is on the outside of the building and the windows are tinted a dark blue colour. The design blends a traditional look with modern materials and style. It is situated in the heart of the business district of Birmingham. The building is home to many large companies. The building sits on the former footprint of the old Greys department store, torn down by PJ Murray Haulage in the 1980s. The building was constructed after the developers bought the patch of land off another developing company whilst they were constructing a building there. The structure of a building was on the site and it was taken down before construction of Colmore Gate began.

The Grand Hotel is a Grade II* listed Victorian five star hotel in the city centre of Birmingham, England. The hotel occupies the greater part of a block bounded by Colmore Row, Church Street, Barwick Street and Livery Street and overlooks St Philip's Cathedral and churchyard. Designed by architect Thomson Plevins, construction began in 1875 and the hotel opened in 1879. Extensions and extensive interior renovations were undertaken by prominent Birmingham architecture firm Martin & Chamberlain from 1890 to 1895. Interior renovations included the building of the Grosvenor Room with Louis XIV style decoration. The hotel closed in 2002 and due to the risk of crumbling stonework where it remained under scaffolding and protective covers for ten years. In 2012 planning permission was granted for plans to restore the building into a luxury hotel. Works to the exterior began in October 2012 and completed in 2021. The hotel reopened in May 2021 with 185 bedrooms, two new bars and a restaurant, a gymnasium, meeting rooms, collaboration areas, and event spaces.

The Archdiocese of Birmingham is one of the principal Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. The archdiocese covers an area of 3,373 square miles (8,740 km2), encompassing Staffordshire, the West Midlands, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and much of Oxfordshire as well as Caversham in Berkshire. The metropolitan see is in the City of Birmingham at the Metropolitan Cathedral Church of Saint Chad. The metropolitan province includes the suffragan dioceses of Clifton and Shrewsbury. The archbishop is Bernard Longley, who was named the ninth Archbishop of Birmingham on 1 October 2009. He succeeds the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols (2000–09). Longley was installed as Archbishop of Birmingham at the Metropolitan Cathedral and Basilica of Saint Chad on 8 December 2009, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and one of the patronal feasts of the archdiocese, St Chad being the other.

St. Philip's Parish Library, also known as the Higgs Library, was a public library attached to St Philip's Church in Birmingham, England between 1733 and 1927.The library was founded in 1733 by St. Philip's first rector William Higgs and was based around his own collection of books, supplemented by purchases paid for from a bequest of £200. Unlike Birmingham's earliest public library, founded between 1635 and 1642, or the later Birmingham Library of 1779 – both of which were largely dissenting institutions – Higgs' Library was associated with the established Church of England. Advertised as "free to all clergymen in the town and neighbourhood", it was also open to laymen with the permission of the rectors of St. Philips or of Birmingham's original parish of St Martin in the Bull Ring.The library moved in 1792 to a room adjoining the parsonage in St. Philip's churchyard. A catalogue of 1795 shows that by then the library had acquired a wide range of books on philosophy, history, economics, education and literary criticism, as well as the expected range of theological and ecclesiastical literature.The library was closed in 1927, with 300 volumes from its collection being presented to Birmingham Central Library and 150 volumes being presented to Queen's College, Edgbaston.

The Great Western Arcade (grid reference SP070871) is a covered Grade II listed Victorian shopping arcade lying between Colmore Row and Temple Row in Birmingham City Centre, England. It was built (1875-6) over the Great Western Railway line cutting at the London end of Snow Hill station. The cutting was covered in 1874. Originally the broad gauge Paddington line ran through a tunnel which stopped at Temple Row and then an open cutting to Snow Hill station. The cutting was roofed over in 1874 and the Great Western Arcade built on top, the line of the new 'tunnel' being offset slightly to the north of the centre of the arcade. The extended tunnel has a length of 596 yards (545 m). The arcade was designed by W. H. Ward of Paradise Street, Birmingham. The arcade has entrances at each end: the one at Temple Row is ornate, unlike the modern reworking at Colmore Row, opposite the entrance to the station. The arcade's roof was originally a glazed semi-circular barrel vault with a glazed central dome, similar to that of the Gallerio Vittoria Emmanuele in Milan which was constructed at the same time. It was destroyed during World War II and has been replaced. The arcade, containing shops on both sides, has a clock which strikes the quarters on a set of five exposed bells.