Birmingham Wholesale Markets

The Birmingham Manor House or Birmingham Moat was a moated building that formed the seat of the Lord of the Manor of Birmingham, England during the Middle Ages, remaining the property of the de Birmingham family until 1536. The buildings were demolished and the moat filled-in in 1815–16, but the remains of medieval stone structures excavated in 1973–75 survive intact beneath the buildings of the Birmingham Wholesale Markets.The date of the first settlement of the site is unknown. Although Birmingham's origins lie in the Anglo-Saxon period and the manor of Birmingham definitely existed at the time of the Domesday Book, no evidence from earlier than the medieval period was found during the archaeological investigations of the site in the 1970s and 2000s. The circular form of the moat suggests eleventh- or twelfth-century origins, and the entrance to the site pointed away from the centre of the medieval town at the site now known as the Bull Ring, suggesting that it preceded the twelfth-century development of the town around the marketplace. Excavations during the construction of the Birmingham Wholesale Markets between 1973 and 1975 revealed a sandstone wall that included a moulding similar to those found on other sites in the West Midlands such as Sandwell Priory, probably dating it to the twelfth century. This wall had been incorporated into a later structure about 11m long and 4m wide with chamfered ashlar stonework – possibly a tower, an oriel window, the base of a stair or the end of a building – with a buttress that indicates a likely thirteenth century date. Further excavations as part of the redevelopment of the Bull RIng in 2000 showed that the moat was 2.5m deep.Documentary evidence of the site is slight. The moat may have been associated with the castrum mentioned in the royal charter of 1166 that granted Peter de Birmingham the right to hold a market in Birmingham, though this isn't certain. The site was mentioned again in a survey of Birmingham of c. 1529 that describes the moat and a drawbridge and claims that the buildings were in a ruinous condition. Another sixteenth-century document describes an outer court to the south east of the site. By the time the site was first illustrated in William Westley's 1731 map of Birmingham there appear to have been no medieval buildings remaining apart from a large circular dovecote, and later maps of 1750 and 1778 show four buildings running across the site in a north–south direction. A single illustration of the site survives from 1814, the year before its destruction.

Smithfield was an inner-city area of Birmingham, England, southeast of the Bull Ring markets.

Digbeth is an area of Central Birmingham, England. Following the destruction of the Inner Ring Road, Digbeth is now considered a district within Birmingham City Centre. As part of the Big City Plan, Digbeth is undergoing a large redevelopment scheme that will regenerate the old industrial buildings into apartments, retail premises, offices and arts facilities. The district is considered to be Birmingham's 'Creative Quarter'.

St Martin in the Bull Ring is a Church of England parish church in the city of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. It is the original parish church of Birmingham and stands between the Bull Ring Shopping Centre and the markets. The church is a Grade II* listed building. The current rector is Jeremy Allcock.

The Selfridges Building is a landmark building in Birmingham, England. The building is part of the Bullring Shopping Centre and houses Selfridges Department Store. The building was completed in 2003 at a cost of £60 million and designed by the architecture firm Future Systems. It has a steel framework with sprayed concrete facade. Since its construction, the building has become an iconic architectural landmark and seen as a major contribution to the regeneration of Birmingham. It is included as a desktop background as part of the Architecture theme in Windows 7.

The Statue of Horatio Nelson by Richard Westmacott, RA (1775–1856) stands in the Bull Ring, Birmingham, England.

The Bull Ring is a major shopping area in central Birmingham England, and has been an important feature of Birmingham since the Middle Ages, when its market was first held. Two shopping centres have been built in the area; in the 1960s, and then in 2003; the latter is styled as one word, Bullring. When coupled with Grand Central (to which it is connected via a pedestrian overpass, branded as ‘LinkStreet’) it forms the United Kingdom's largest city centre based shopping centre, styled as Bullring & Grand Central. The site is located on the edge of the sandstone city ridge which results in the steep gradient towards Digbeth. The slope drops approximately 15 metres (49 ft) from New Street to St Martin's Church which is very visible near the church.The current shopping centre was the busiest in the United Kingdom in 2004 with 36.5 million visitors. It houses one of only four Selfridges department stores and previously the fourth largest Debenhams in the UK.

The Public Office was a municipal building on Moor Street in Birmingham, England, built between 1805 and 1807. It was the first important administrative building in Birmingham, and remained the principal local government centre until the 1880s, when the much larger Council House was constructed. The building was demolished in 1911 to make way for a railway goods station.

Freeth's Coffee House, the popular name for the Leicester Arms on the corner of Bell Street and Lease Lane in Birmingham, England, was a tavern and coffee house that operated from 1736 until 1832.One of the most celebrated meeting places of Georgian England, it was already known during the early eighteenth century as a place for small businessmen and lawyers to conduct business. During the second half of the century, when its landlord was the topical ballad-writer John Freeth, it was at the forefront of the emergence of popular political consciousness in Birmingham, as the host of radical groups such as the Birmingham Book Club, and as the focus for local opposition to the governments of Lord North.

The Birmingham Gay Village is an LGBT district or "gaybourhood" next to the Chinese Quarter in Birmingham city centre, centred along Hurst Street, which hosts many LGBT-friendly businesses. The village is visited by thousands of people every week and has a thriving night life featuring clubs, sports bars, cocktail bars, cabaret bars and shops, with most featuring live entertainment including music, dancing and drag queens.The 2017 gay, lesbian and bisexual population of the West Midlands was recorded at 2.2% or 128,920 of the estimated 5.86 million residents of the West Midlands region. In 2009, the gay and lesbian population of Birmingham was estimated to be around 6 percent or 60,000 of the estimated 1.03 million residents.

The Anchor Inn (now just 'The Anchor') is one of the oldest public houses in Digbeth, Birmingham, England, dating back to 1797. The current building was constructed in 1901 to a design by James and Lister Lea for the Holt Brewery Company. The terracotta on the façade is believed to have come from the Hathern Station Brick and Terracotta Company of Loughborough. On 10 December 1991 the building was designated Grade II listed building status, along with other nearby pubs such as the White Swan. The pub won the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) award of 'Regional Pub of the Year' in 1996/7, 1998/9, 2003/4 and again 2007/8. The pub was taken over by Julian Rose-Gibbs in 2016, after being in the hands of the Keane family who ran it for 43 years.

Birmingham Coach Station (formerly Digbeth Coach Station) is a major coach interchange in Digbeth, Birmingham, England offering services to destinations throughout the island of Great Britain and also to Belfast and Dublin. National Express, the largest scheduled coach service provider in Europe, has its national headquarters on the site.