Stechford rail crash

Stechford Baptist Church is a small Baptist church in the Stechford area of Birmingham, England and is notable for a 40-year history of combating racism and promoting community cohesion in a British urban-deprived setting. In the vanguard of attempts from the 1960s to engage immigrant Caribbean communities within mainstream indigenous churches, it played a key role in opposing the National Front during the 1970s. By the 1980s and 1990s it achieved a 50%/50% balance of indigenous and non-indigenous membership and leadership, thereby contrasting sharply with a UK tendency towards majority-white and majority-black churches, where splits are typically in the 90/10 ratio. During the 1990s the church developed relationships with a number of black-led community groups which had grown out of the 1985 Handsworth riots (which also included Stechford), and from 2000 the church worked to support asylum-seeker rights. One of the church leaders, Mrs E C McGhie-Belgrave, was awarded the MBE in 2002 and subsequently the Queen's Golden Jubilee Award in 2004 [1] for her contribution to community cohesion and Black-White issues in Birmingham.

Stechford railway station serves the Stechford area of Birmingham, England on Victoria Road, just off Station Road, which is part of the A4040 Birmingham outer ring road. The station and all trains serving it are operated by West Midlands Trains. It lies at the junction between the Birmingham to Coventry line and the predominantly freight-only Stechford-Aston spur. The station was much more important at the end of the 19th century, retaining a working freight yard until as late as the 1980s. The yard tracks have since been lifted. Platform 1 is used by services to Birmingham New Street and was also served by a few direct services from Birmingham International to Walsall, platform 2 is used by services to Birmingham International, Coventry and London Euston. Platform 3 currently has no timetabled services. Up Walsall to Birmingham International trains formerly had a platform face of their own (platform 3), but down Birmingham International to Walsall trains used the up main platform via a facing crossover. The 19th-century bridge over the railway underwent renovation from August to September 2006. On 28 February 1967, Stechford station was the scene of a train collision.

The Stechford Club is a private members club in Stechford, Birmingham. It was established in 1907 and past members of the club include world snooker champion Joe Davis.

Washwood Heath Academy is an all through school located in the Washwood Heath ward of Birmingham, England. Originally known as Washwood Heath Comprehensive School, it opened in September 1967. It was extended in 1996 to make way for the Post-16 centre. The school became a specialist Technology College and was renamed Washwood Heath Technology College. In 2013 Washwood Heath Technology College was converted into an academy and renamed Washwood Heath Academy. David Harewood, an ex-pupil, made a documentary about turning a group of Washwood Heath pupils into Shakespearean actors in five days.

Waverley School is a mixed all-through school located in Small Heath, Birmingham, England.

Stechford is an area of East Birmingham, England, situated about five miles east of the city centre, bordering Ward End, Yardley, Hodge Hill and Kitts Green. Historically it lay within Worcestershire.

Christ Church, Ward End is a Grade II listed parish church in the Church of England in Birmingham.

The Fox & Goose is a shopping district in Ward End, Birmingham, England, at the eastern end of Washwood Heath Road. It is named after the public house there. It also is the point where Ward End and Hodge Hill end and Stechford begins. The Fox & Goose provides an alternate shopping area from nearby Alum Rock and includes Beaufort Park opposite it, which is also a shopping area. Tesco Stores recently opened a new store in the area. Plans were first outlined in 2005, however, campaigns and objections by the residents saw the plans revised in September 2006. This included the reduction in land taken from Brockhurst playing fields (also known as the Met by locals as the land used to be owned by Metropolitan-Cammell), resulting in the reduction of the proposed store size and number of car parking spaces to be made available. Money paid under the Section 106, will fund an artificial turf pitch for Hodge Hill School and improvements to CCTV in the area.

Ward End is an area of Birmingham, England. It covers the area between Saltley, Hodge Hill and Stechford and includes Ward End Park, a public park that has been open for over 100 years.

Stechford and Yardley North is one of the 40 electoral wards in Birmingham, England. Stechford and Yardley North is one of the four wards that make up the council constituency of Yardley. It covers an area of 4.4 square kilometres. East Yardley, part of Garretts Green, Glebe Farm, Old Yardley Village, Poolway, Stechford including Stechford Village and Whittington Oval Estate are areas all covered by the ward.

Hodge Hill is an area 4 miles east of Birmingham City Centre, England. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. The MP of Hodge Hill is currently Liam Byrne.The constituency includes the smaller constituency ward and the wards of Bordesley Green, Shard End and Washwood Heath.

Blakesley Hall, a grade II* listed building is a Tudor hall on Blakesley Road in Yardley, Birmingham, England. It is one of the oldest buildings in Birmingham and is a typical example of Tudor architecture with the use of darkened timber and wattle-and-daub infill, with an external lime render which is painted white. The extensive use of close studding and herringbone patterns on all sides of the house make this a home that was designed to show the wealth and status of the owner. The house is also jettied on all sides. At the rear of the hall, built on the back of the chimney, is a brick kitchen block dating from circa 1650. The hall is a timber-framed farmhouse built in 1590 (when Yardley was in Worcestershire) by Richard Smalbroke, a man of local importance to Yardley. His family farmed at the hall and had other buildings in the surrounding area which were lost over time. After 1685, the building passed into the hands of the Greswolde family and for the next 200 years became a tenant farm. In 1899, the hall was acquired by Henry Donne who renovated the dilapidated house before selling it to the Merry family, a local paint and varnish manufacturer, who were the last family to occupy the hall. The hall became a museum in 1935 after centuries of use as a private home and its parlour was renovated. Its purpose was to display the history of the local medieval manors which comprise Birmingham. The Hall was damaged by a bomb in November 1941 causing extensive damage and the museum did not open again until 1957. After research in the 1970s, the Hall was restored to an authentic period appearance and refurbished using furnishings drawn from the 1684 inventory of the contents. It was last renovated in 2002 with the extension of a visitor centre and car park. Some structural work was also carried out in the hall and modern intrusive features such as the toilet block and the boiler room were removed, the former being relocated into the new visitor centre. This allowed the second smaller parlour to be placed on the ground floor next to the Great Parlour. An adjacent barn (Grade II listed) to the east of the hall has been renovated and consists of exhibition space and space for social functions. As a Community Museum, that is a branch museum, of the Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery it is run by Birmingham Museums Trust. Many of the original architectural features of the hall remain such as the herringbone floor. Among the artefacts discovered at the hall are candlesticks and pewter goblets. In the Bedchamber, paintings on the wall from 1590 were discovered after being hidden for centuries, their rediscovery partly in thanks of the bomb damage that loosened a significant amount of plaster in the hall. When renovations took place postwar, inspection of the bedchamber revealed fragments of leather and painted plaster. When the chamber was cleaned up, the walls and timbers were shown to be decorated in a Moorish design. A mock up of how the 'painted chamber' would have looked can be seen in the back bedroom at Blakesley hall. The Gilbertstone, moved in local folklore by the Giant named Gilbert (which gave its name to the area of Gilbertstone on the border of Yardley and South Yardley), is displayed in the grounds of the museum.