Birmingham City Centre Graffiti Area Digbeth Birmingham 171113

             Birmingham City Centre 

                Graffiti Area Digbeth 

                 Birmingham 171113

Check out my Flickr photographs

www.flickr.com by my name Liz Callan

under Flickr members

This is a selection of the great Graffiti in the one area of Birmingham. This area is close to where I was born and walked this streets all my childhood.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Floodgate+St,+Birmingham,+UK&hl=en&ll=52.476769,-1.881945&spn=0.007946,0.021136&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.174768,86.572266&oq=floodgate+street+bir&hnear=Floodgate+St,+Birmingham,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16

Birmingham City Centre Graffiti Alfie Mo Digbeth Birmingham 171113

Birmingham City Centre Graffiti "Alfie Mo"  Digbeth Birmingham 171013

Check out my Flickr photographs

www.flickr.com by my name Liz Callan

under Flickr members

Movember

Digbeth Custard Factory has joined Movember fundraising efforts after sprouting a six foot black handlebar moustache.

The month long charity drive sees men growing their facial hair in November to raise cash towards the fight against prostate and testicular cancer.

Movember organisers commissioned graffiti artists to daub a gaint mural on a 30 metre tall brick chimney at the landmark building, complete with face and moustache.

A team from Digbeth based firm graffiti4hire took six days and 100 cans of paint to complete the artwork.

It has been dubbed "Alfie Mo", after Alfie Bird, the founder of the Bird's Custard empire and original owner of the Custard Factory.

Alfie even has his own fundraising page uk.movember.com/mospace/8954801

Take a look at the video how it was done it is amazing. Click on the link

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/video-movember---time-lapsed-film-6294117

Click on the link below for directions

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Floodgate+Street,+Birmingham&hl=en&ll=52.47504,-1.88385&spn=0.001987,0.005284&sll=52.654215,-2.382948&sspn=0.506512,1.352692&oq=floodgate+&hnear=Floodgate+St,+Birmingham,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=18

Birmingham City Centre The New Central Library largest in Europe 171113

Birmingham City Centre The New Central Library largest in Europe 171113

Check out my Flickr photographs

www.flickr.com by my name Liz Callan

under Flickr members

The new Birmingham Library in Centenary Square, Broad Street, Birmingham  England. 

(My old town where I was born)

website - www.libraryofbirmingham.com 

read link http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library of Birmingham  

They started construction on the 7th January 2013 and completed the library in April 2013. It was opened on the 3rd of September 2013.  They had to transfer the books from the old library to the new.

It cost £188.80 million to build. It is 60 metres high (300feet). it as 10 storeys above the city's Centenary Square as a gigantic stack of boxes, wrapped in a mesh of metal loops.

The architect was Francine Houben and the Architecture firm that built it was called Mecanoo Architecten

Francine Houben (born in Sittard, 1955) is a leading Dutch architect. She is a founding partner and the creative director of Meconoo Architecten, Delft, The Netherlands. 

The oeuvre of Francine Houben is extremely wide-ranging and includes projects such as universities, libriaries, theatres, residential areas, museum's and hotels. Houben combines the disciplines of  architecture, urban planning and landscape architecture to form a unique solution to each situation. She has gained international acclaim for her works and has been praised for her playful and human style.

Francine Houben has held important proffessorships in the Netherlands and abroad, and in 2007 was visiting professor at Harvard University. From 2002 to 2006 she was City Architect of the Dutch city Almere. In 2001 she published her seminal manifesto about architecture: 'Composition, Contrast, Complexity' and brought as curator of the First International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam in 2003, the theme of mobility to the forefront of international design consciousness. In 2010 Francine Houben was granted lifelong membership to the Akademie der Künste, Architecture Department, in Berlin.

A few buildings to view on the skyline

 BT Tower -10 Holloway Circus-Chamamberlian Clock tower-Alpha tower- Orion Building-Rotunda-103 Colmore Row-The Cube-Five Ways Tower- Centre City tower- Two Snowhill-1 Snow Hill Plaza-Quayside tower-Colmore Gate-McLaren Building-Metropolitan House-Edgbaston House- Post & Mail building- Jury Inn- Baskerville House-Chamberlain Memorial- Council house- Hall of Memory- (former Central library- Town Hall- Moor Street  Station – New Street Station- Snow Hill- Aston University- Birmingham University- Children’s Hospital- Hyatt Regency- Holiday Inn-Jury’s Inn- Brindleyplace- Bullring_ Mailbox- Old Rep-Symphony Hall – Rep-

Click on the link below for directions

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Library+of+Birmingham,+Cambridge+Street,+Birmingham&hl=en&ll=52.47967,-1.908553&spn=0.003973,0.010568&sll=53.076271,-0.802034&sspn=0.0627,0.169086&oq=birmingham+library+&hq=Library+of&hnear=Cambridge+St&t=m&z=17

Tong St Bartholomew's Church night photography Shropshire 231013

Tong St Bartholomew's Church night photography Shropshire 231013

Check out my Flickr photographs

www.flickr.com by my name Liz Callan

under Flickr members 

I have two collections of photographs of this beautiful church on my Flickr.

I will have to go back and get a more recent inside set of photographs. 

Read down through the photographs some of the history of Tong.

Tong is a village in Shropshire England. It is near junction 3 of the M54 motorway (A41) junctions near Albrigton.

The village its self is small with three red bricked Georgian houses, a large Victorian house and pretty black and white cottages tucked away into each corner.

The village is remarkable mainly for its famous church St. Bartholomews, outside of which is the supposed grave of Little Nell. Little Nell was a fictional character in Charles Dickens book, The Old Curiosity Shop. It is thought that Charles Dickens visited Tong Church when his grandmother worked at Tong Castle. The castle was demolished in 1954 it stood south of the church. The site of the M54 motorway now.

Beyond the main road is an ornamental lake, which is all that remains of Tong Castle remodeled by Capability Brown in 1765. 

The Church itself was originally a Collegiate Church, although the college buildings which are referenced as having included a warden and four priests, two clerks and thirteen poor people have long since gone.

There are surely very few villages in England, which have had their church compared to Westminster Abbey. It was the American consul to Birmingham, Elihu Burritt who referred to Tong Church as a "Little Westminster". He may have been overstating it a little, but the red sand stone church has a central tower rising to a pinnacled spire. 

There are certainly a wealth of impressive and beautiful monuments inside to noble families.

Perhaps the most noted monuments are those of the Vernons, amongst whose tombs lies the resting place of Sir Richard, a 15th century Speaker of the House of Commons, and his wife Benedicta. Another link with the Vernon family is the Great Bell of Tong which was given to the church in 1518 by Henry Vernon.

The bell has been recast twice in the centuries since and it now weighs over 2 tons. A list provides visitors with details of when the bell is rung. These include Royal births, Royal visits to Tong and visits by the head of the Vernon Family.

Nearby the Vernon monument lies the grave of Sir William, a Knight constable of England and Margaret his wife.

Perhaps the oldest grave here is that of Sir Fulke de Pembrugge, who held the position of Lord of Tong from 1371 to 1409. His second wife Isabella lies by his side and she is the lady who founded the church in 1410 so that masses could be said to Sir Fulke and her two other husbands Thomas Peyeveyne and John Ludlow.

The grave is thought to have come about because Charles Dickens novel, was serialised and shipped over to America and as a result; Americans began coming over to England to visit the scenes featured in the book. The tourists recognized the references to the Tong church from the book and came to view the supposed grave which of course was not there. There is a stone saying Little Nell.

However a verger and village postmaster George H Bowden (16 August 1856-May 1943) apparently asked local people to pay for a headstone, forged an entry in the church register of burials (apparently the giveaway was that he used the post office ink to do this) and charged people to see the grave. The headstone has been moved from time to time to make way for genuine graves.

A particularly notable feature of St. Bartholomew's is the collection of amazing memorials to the Vernon Family and other proprietors of the Tong estate inside the church. You have to see them to believe how fantastic they are.

St. Bartholomew's was chosen by Simon Jenkins of "The Times" newspaper in 1999 as one of the best 1,000 churches out of 15,000 in England. He awarded the church, which was mostly rebuilt in 1409. three stars out of a possible five. He refers to the collection of villages tombs, the masterpiece of which that of Richard Vernon who died in 1451. 

In "White-ladies" one the "Boscobel Tracts" that describes the events of Charles II's escape from England after the battle of Worcester, there is a statement that Charles, while sheltering at Boscobel House about two miles away, "had the pleasure of a prospect from Tong to Brewood, which satisfied the eyes and the famous bells at Tong, which entertained the ear. The bells he heard were the bells of St. Bartholomew's.

If you visit Tong village and church, you must drive to Boscobel House and White ladies priory. 

I have photographs on my Flickr account of these places. Boscobel House is stunning with beautiful gardens. The famous oak tree where King Charles II hid. 

Click on link for directions

Broseley Town Centre before the rain 121013

Broseley Town Centre before the rain 121013

Check out my Flickr photographs

www.flickr.com by my name Liz Callan

under Flickr members 

In Broseley's heyday in the early to mid 1800's, furnace, foundries, boring mills, smithies and kilns were much in evidence. The tow was a thriving Andalusia settlement and developed into a major centre for coal, clay and limestone extraction as well as tile, brick and earthenware manufacture.

Most famously Broseley produced clay tobacco pipes. The pope works are in King Street. 

Broseley's early industrial significance cannot be overstated. For example, the reason for the construction of the Iron Bridge was to link the rapidly growing Broseley with another famous industrial town, Coalbrookdale. What's more Broseley attracted many engineering pioneers and entrepreneurs. Men such Iron made John Wilkinson. He built the first iron boat and further developed a method of driving a forge hammer with rotative steam engine at Willey. 

Abraham Darby 1st, the coalbrookdale ironmaster, is buried near the Pipeworks Museum. John Guest, an ironmaster whose early company eventually became GKN, founded the chapel at Birchmeadow (now a community centre_. John Rose of Coalport China fame lived at the Lawns, an imposing Georgian house on Church Street. 

Click on the link for 

directions to Broseley Shropshire link