Death of Helen Bailey

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.

Perry Beeches is an area of Great Barr, Birmingham, England, within the parliamentary constituency of Perry Barr. Previously agricultural, with some sand and gravel quarrying on the site of Asda Queslett; it was developed as a residential suburb of Birmingham immediately before and after World War II. Many of the houses in the Thornbridge Avenue and Booth's Farm Road areas were constructed before the outbreak of war, while the remaining part of the estate (between the Beeches and Aldridge Roads) was completed after 1945. The Perry Beeches area is bisected by the M6 motorway, constructed in the early 1970s. The housing in the southern part of Perry Beeches -in the Thornbridge Avenue area and at the eastern end of the Beeches Road (formerly known as Brick Kiln Lane)- was built by Henry Boot of Sheffield for the 'First National Housing Trust' - who also built a similar estate, albeit with houses of a slightly larger floorplan, at Pheasey. This is located to the north-east of the Beeches Estate on land that was part of Aldridge Urban District Council and now part of Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council. Most of these houses were built in blocks of 4-6 with some blocks of 2 semi-detached in a similar style where space would not allow for larger blocks, or where the land was too steep for these blocks - notably in Holmesfield Road; that was built on a steep hill. While many residents have now bought these properties and made many alterations, the original floorplan for most houses consisted of a hallway, front room and then a rear kitchen with pantry, coal hole and a downstairs toilet. As these houses were originally rented, they had identical wooden doors and windows painted cream, with either dark green or brown doors and outer frames. Wooden fences with a garden hedge were also placed around every house. The houses to the north of the area (north of the Beeches Road between the Walsall and M6) were by contrast privately owned. These are mostly blocks of semi-detached houses with generally more decorative features, including large circular bay windows on the upper and ground floor, stained glass front doors and windows, and in most cases both a front and back reception room. At the rear of most houses in the Walsall Road and Booths Farm Road area, the houses were built with long rear access 'right of ways'. These proved useful as more people owned a private car from the early 1950s onwards and were able to build a garage on the bottom part of their back garden plot opening onto these 'right of ways'. They also made good short-cuts. In recent years, however, these became good access routes for thieves breaking into garages and houses. Due to this, many now have large padlocked gates at their roadside entrance and are only accessible to residents. There are a number of primary schools around this area and two secondary schools with one being directly located on the Beeches Estate. Secondary education is provided at Arena Academy.

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

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.

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.

Birmingham Crematorium is a Protestant crematorium in the Perry Barr district of Birmingham, England, designed by Frank Osborne and opened in 1903. A columbarium was added in 1928. The crematorium is now owned and operated by Dignity plc.

Alexander Stadium is a track and field athletics stadium in Perry Park, Birmingham, England. It hosted the athletics and opening/closing ceremonies of the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Other events held there include the annual British Grand Prix between 2011 and 2019 and in 2022, the Amateur Athletics Association Championships, 1998 Disability World Athletics Championships, and English Schools' Athletics Championships. The Stadium will also host the Midlands Hurricanes rugby league team from 2023 onwards.Original construction began in 1975 and the stadium opened in 1976. It is owned and operated by Birmingham City Council. Birchfield Harriers use it as their home stadium, replacing their former home at Alexander Sports Ground. The stadium underwent a renovation between 2019 and 2022, to prepare it for hosting the Commonwealth Games.

The opening ceremony for the 2022 Commonwealth Games took place on the evening of Thursday 28 July in the Alexander Stadium, Birmingham. As mandated by the Commonwealth Games Charter, the proceedings of the ceremony combined the formal opening of the sporting event (including hoisting of the flags, parade of the athletes and welcome speeches) with an artistic performance to showcase the host nation's culture. The 2022 Games were formally opened by Charles, Prince of Wales.

Perry Park is a park in Perry Barr, Birmingham, England, at grid reference SP065925. The park houses Alexander Stadium and Perry Reservoir (52.5320°N 1.9024°W / 52.5320; -1.9024), a small canal feeder reservoir for the Tame Valley Canal, and is bounded by the canal, the M6 motorway, the A34 and local roads.It is the venue for the end of the Birmingham International Carnival and in 2004, hosted Radio 1's final One Big Weekend under that name, with performers including Chris Moyles, Natasha Bedingfield, Lostprophets, Joss Stone and Mylo. It is separate from the similarly named Perry Hall Park, also in Perry Barr. The popular Birmingham BMX Track or Birmingham Bike Park is located just within the park, off the Aldridge Road entrance.

Tower Hill is an area of Great Barr, Birmingham, England. It is situated on the western side of the main A34 road that links Birmingham with Walsall, and straddles the Tame Valley Canal. The canal passes through Tower Hill in a deep cutting in 200-million-year-old sandstone, and is crossed by Freeth Bridge (now restricted to pedestrians and bikes only). There are no locks on this section, which is at the Walsall Level. The area was chiefly developed between 1930 and 1960 for a mix of private and council housing. It has shops, a medical centre, a library (venue for the Barr and Aston Local History Society) and an ambulance station; the latter in a former branch of the Birmingham Municipal Bank. The only pub, The Towers, boasts a sign carved by William Bloye.

Perry Barr Urban District, or Urban District of Perry Barr was an area of England for local government administrative purposes. As such, it was administered locally by Perry Barr Urban District Council. It took its name from the included hamlet of Perry Barr, which was until then in the parish of Handsworth. It was created in 1894 as a result of the Local Government Act 1894, as a subdivision of the administrative county of Staffordshire, and existed until 1928, when it largely became part of Birmingham, and so also part of the county of Warwickshire. At that time, small parts of the district were granted to the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, also in Warwickshire, and to West Bromwich (remaining in Staffordshire until 1974). In 1974, Birmingham was taken out of Warwickshire and became part of the West Midlands county, as was Sutton Coldfield, which became part of Birmingham at the same time. The district included areas which today are known as: Perry Barr (Old) Oscott Queslett Hamstead Handsworth (parts of) Great Barr (parts of)The area is still considered to be in the Staffordshire vice-county for wildlife recording purposes.

Perry Barr is a suburban area in north Birmingham, England. It is also the name of a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. Birmingham Perry Barr is also a parliamentary constituency; its Member of Parliament is Khalid Mahmood. The constituency includes the smaller Perry Barr ward, and the wards of Handsworth Wood, Lozells and East Handsworth, and Oscott, which each elect three councillors to Birmingham City Council.