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Selfridges Building, Birmingham

Buildings and structures in Birmingham, West MidlandsDepartment store buildings in the United KingdomRecipients of Civic Trust AwardsSelfridgesUnited Kingdom building and structure stubs
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Selfridges Building, Birmingham (2012)
Selfridges Building, Birmingham (2012)

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.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Selfridges Building, Birmingham (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Selfridges Building, Birmingham
Park Street, Birmingham Digbeth

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Wikipedia: Selfridges Building, BirminghamContinue reading on Wikipedia

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Latitude Longitude
N 52.477783333333 ° E -1.8922583333333 °
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Selfridges

Park Street
B5 6BH Birmingham, Digbeth
England, United Kingdom
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Selfridges Building, Birmingham (2012)
Selfridges Building, Birmingham (2012)
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Birmingham Manor House
Birmingham Manor House

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.

Moor Street Theatre
Moor Street Theatre

The Moor Street Theatre was the first regular theatre – as distinct from earlier booths and converted barns for strolling players – to be established in Birmingham, England. Located in a back yard between Moor Street and Park Street north of the Bull Ring, it opened in 1740 with a performance of "Oratorio with Vocal and Instrumental Musick".Although the theatre was not purpose-built for dramatic performances, surviving records show that it had boxes, a pit, a balcony and two galleries, together with significant backstage machinery, suggesting that it was a substantial structure. Plays were performed on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings between July and October. During cold weather the theatre was heated by burning fires for two days before a performance.Like all early Birmingham theatres the Moor Street Theatre was not licensed for dramatic performance, so technically charged for the performance of music during the interval - the play itself being given free of charge. The top seat prices of 2 shillings and 6 pence suggest a well-off audience and, following the lead of David Garrick, performances were given in costumes "proper to the play".The theatre was managed by John Ward during the 1740s, who had established Birmingham's first professional theatre company – the Warwickshire Company of Comedians – by 1744. A visit in 1751 by Richard Yates and 'His Majesty's Servants from the Theatres Royal in London' – essentially the company from the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane – was so successful that Yates' company was installed permanently in the theatre, and two years later Yates was encouraged to open the much larger King Street Theatre. The Moor Street Theatre was increasingly unable to compete and closed in 1763.The composer Barnabas Gunn promoted orchestral concerts at the theatre from 1740, the earliest secular classical music concerts recorded in Birmingham.The existence of two theatres in the town had been controversial with Birmingham's religious non-conformists. When the closed Moor Street Theatre was converted into a Methodist chapel in 1764, John Wesley preached how "Happy would it be, if all playhouses in the kingdom were converted to so good an use", though some elements of the town evidently disagreed, and stoned the congregation as they left.