Barr Beacon School

Great Barr Hall is an 18th-century mansion situated at Pheasey, Walsall, on the border with Great Barr, Birmingham, West Midlands, England. It has associations with the Lunar Society and is a Grade II listed building. It is, however, in a very poor state of repair and is on the Buildings at Risk Register.

Queslett is an area of Great Barr, Birmingham, England. The name (originally Quieslade) has been in use since the 16th century. The first part, from "Queest", means a wood pigeon, the second comes from the Anglo-Saxon "slade", for a small valley. Another old spelling, Queeslet, appears on Victorian maps and postcards. The area was part of Staffordshire until 1928. In 1810, in A Complete History of the Druids, T G Lomax described the area: At the declivity of very pleasingly diversified hills, near Quieslade, is a most delightful lake, by crossing the head of which, the admirer of variegated landscape will be amply rewarded by an agreeable range over the opposite hills, where the High-Wood and Barr Beacon present themselves to view; and by gradually climbing the first of these two summits, the south-east prospect becomes very rich and extensive; and the latter presents an unbounded panorama into fifteen counties, which PLOT, in his History of Staffordshire, has specified. (the later being a reference to Robert Plot's Natural History of Staffordshire). The area was mostly developed with private housing from the 1930s onwards, and is centred on the A4041 Queslett Road between West Bromwich and Sutton Coldfield, overlooked by Barr Beacon. A former sand quarry, on the site of William Booth's farm, was subsequently used for landfill. One half of the site is now Queslett Nature Reserve. The Moonstones, an artwork commemorating The Lunar Society, who met at nearby Great Barr Hall, stands in the grounds of a supermarket, on the site of the quarry's former office.

The Moonstones (grid reference SP062949) are a set of nine carved sandstone memorials to various members of the Lunar Society. Made in 1998, and unveiled in March 1999, they can be viewed in the grounds of the Asda supermarket in Queslett, Great Barr, Birmingham, England. They are visible from the highway, when travelling from Aldridge Road into Queslett Road, toward the Scott Arms, and face outwards from the supermarket. They depict nine members of the Society and attributes connected with their work, in order from Aldridge Road round to Queslett Road: Josiah Wedgwood: portrait and three women from a jasperware design Erasmus Darwin: portrait and design for horizontal windmill Samuel Galton: colour wheel William Murdock: steam road locomotive Matthew Boulton: medal with his portrait James Watt: portrait and steam engine Joseph Priestley: laboratory equipment James Keir: crystals William Withering: foxglove, with words from his book An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical UsesThe stones also each have a phase of the moon carved on them, with the Watt stone being the full moon. The designs are by Steve Field and were executed by two stonemasons, Malcolm Sier and Michael Scheurmann. The rear of the Watt stone includes a carved panel crediting the artists and sponsors. Great Barr Hall, Galton's home and a venue for meetings of the Lunar Society, is nearby.

Pheasey is a residential area of Walsall Metropolitan Borough in the West Midlands of England, often considered to be part of Great Barr. The area was predominantly developed for housing, as the Pheasey Estate, in the 1930s, but work was not completed until after the Second World War. Barr Beacon, a hill, is a local landmark.

Barr Beacon is a hill on the edge of Walsall, West Midlands, England, very near the border with Birmingham. It gives its name to nearby Great Barr (the Beacon borders the Pheasey area of Great Barr) and to the local secondary school Barr Beacon School. It is historically the site of a beacon where fires were lit in times of impending attack or on celebratory occasions. The site is on green belt land and is of local importance for nature conservation, as defined by Walsall Borough Council, who have designated some 60 acres (25 ha) of it as a Local Nature Reserve.

Barr Beacon Reservoir is a covered, hill-top drinking water reservoir at Barr Beacon, Walsall, England, opened in 1899. It is operated by South Staffs Water.One of the uses of the reservoir is to transfer water from the company's works at Hampton Loade, on the River Severn, to Burton upon Trent. Water is pumped uphill from the Sedgley Beacon Reservoirs, which receive water from Hampton Loade, through 45-inch (110 cm) mains to Barr Beacon Reservoir via West Bromwich Booster. A 36-inch (91 cm) main then carries water by gravity via Seedy Mill works to Burton on Trent.The water company also operates a weather station, one of several in its network, at the reservoir, to monitor temperature, hours of sunshine, and rainfall.The reservoir was re-roofed in 1969, temporarily exposing the brick arches which support the roof.In August 2013, Severn Trent Water launched a £2 million project to build a 2 1/2 mile pipeline linking their Perry Barr Reservoir to Barr Beacon Reservoir, to allow for the exchange of water in emergencies such as severe droughts.

The Church Of St Margaret (also known as St Margaret's Church), is the Anglican parish church of Great Barr and is located on Chapel Lane, Walsall, England. It is dedicated to Saint Margaret of Antioch. The church was rebuilt in 1862, by Griffin. The tower was built of brick in 1677, but this is completely hidden by a Gothic revival red sandstone casing added in 1893. The spire is 18th-century. The pulpit, in alabaster, was made to a design by Walter Tapper. The church was granted Grade II listed status in July 1986, legally protecting it from unauthorised alteration or demolition. Its war memorial, described by Historic England as "a lantern cross in the medieval style", was separately listed, also at Grade II, in April 2016.The church was historically in Staffordshire, and so its historic records are lodged with Staffordshire Record Office.The church gives its name to the nearby St Margaret's Church of England Primary School, and to the former St Margaret's hospital in the adjacent grounds of Great Barr Hall.

Fortis Academy is a co-educational secondary school and sixth form located in the Great Barr area of Birmingham, England.

The death of Helen Bailey is a British child murder case dating from 1975 in which an eight-year-old girl's death was originally classified by a coroner as being due to undetermined causes and potentially sourcing from an "accident or [a] practical joke gone wrong" despite the fact the child was found in a secluded area and that her jugular vein had been severed.Despite intense police efforts, Bailey's killer was never identified, although several investigators strongly believe the child was murdered by a suspect who is known to have confessed to have strangled, then cut the child's throat in the late 1970s—having also contemporarily divulged forensic details of the child's death not revealed in the original 1976 inquest into her death.Officially, Helen Bailey's murder remains unsolved. Contemporary media accounts dubbed Bailey as "Little Girl Blue" due to the fact the child was dressed entirely in blue at the time of her death.

Arena Academy is a coeducational secondary school located in the Perry Beeches area of Birminghamin the West Midlands of England.Previously a community school administered by Birmingham City Council, Perry Beeches School converted to academy status on 3 May 2012 and was renamed Perry Beeches The Academy. On 14 July 2017, Kevin Rogers of Perry Beeches 2 announced to students that Perry Beeches The Academy was going to leave Perry Beeches The Academy Trust and would change to a new trust and would change uniform and name. The school joined CORE Education Trust and was renamed Arena Academy. The school offers GCSEs and BTECs as programmes of study for pupils.

Great Barr is now a large and loosely defined area to the north-west of Birmingham, England. The area was historically in Staffordshire, and the parts now in Birmingham were once known as Perry Barr, which is still the name of an adjacent Birmingham district. Other areas known as Great Barr are in the Metropolitan Boroughs of Walsall and Sandwell. "Barr" means "hill", and the name refers to nearby Barr Beacon.

St Paul's Church, Hamstead is a Grade II listed Church of England parish church in Birmingham, England.