The race to modernise, renew and rebuild cities after the Second World War claimed many fine and beautiful buildings as a campaigning new book, Lost Victorian Britain, argues. Neil Elkes looks at Birmingham’s lost treasures.

The last decade has seen Birmingham City Centre transformed beyond recognition as the architects wipe away what many consider to be mistakes of fifty years ago.

It started with the demolition of the Bullring, hailed in the 1970s as the future of shopping, and ends with the bulldozing of the 1960s New Street Station, possibly the worst welcome any city could give travellers arriving from afar.

Also disappearing from our skyline has been the glazed offices of the blocky Post and Mail Tower, while the clock is ticking on the famously divisive inverted ziggurat and cracking concrete of the Central Library.

It is only a matter of time, and an improved commercial property market, before the NatWest Tower and others follow.

Further out from the city centre on post war estates such as Newtown and Castle Vale, tower blocks and box-like housing has been demolished, adapted and replaced.

Perhaps only the striking Rotunda stands out as a much loved product of this era and this tower has been successfully preserved and modernised.

This new revolution, is of a much smaller scale to that which saw the designers of the 1950s and 1960s sweep away vast areas of Victorian architecture from rows of slum houses to ornate hotels, pubs and office buildings.

There was a rush to rebuild, some of justified due to bomb damage, but Birmingham also embraced the car, and with it the flyover, the underpass and the dual carriageway and the modern became fashionable.

So gone forever is the grandeur of the old New Street Station, the Great Western Hotel which welcomed travellers to Snow Hill Station and a gem of a bar, the distinctive Woodman in Easy Row, which was sacrificed for the inner ring road.

These are among buildings looked at by architectural historian Gavin Stamp in his book Lost Victorian Britain. He charts what he describes as the ‘catastrophic swathe’ cut through our built heritage by Twentieth century architects. This has, he concludes been replaced in recent years by a firm affection for Victorian architecture.

He celebrates London’s St Pancaras Station as a sign of this change in attitudes: “Threatened with demolition in 1966 and neglected for years afterwards, the station has re-emerged into public consciousness as a splendid gateway to Europe. The revamped station is a now triumphant success. Past and future can co-exist. Eurostar trains now run into William Barlow’s great train shed.”

He highlights the merits of Victorian architecture as ‘colourful, enjoyable and life enhancing’ as well as ‘solidly built, practical, serviceable and often perfectly adaptable to modern needs’.

Fortunately, and thanks in large part to the work of conservationists such as the Victorian Society, Birmingham boasts many fine examples of Victorian heritage.

Even as buildings which are struggling to find a use in the modern world, such as the Central Methodist Hall, the Victoria Law Courts, Curzon Street and the Grand Hotel have a degree of legal protection. While others such as the Town Hall, the former Oozells Street School and Spring Hill Library have found a place in 21st Century Birmingham as a successful theatre, modern art gallery and supermarket respectively.

In his book Gavin Stamp argues that architectural fashion, and blinkered intellectual opinion, is the reason so much was demolished.

He concludes: “All too often solid Victorian buildings were replaced by cheap modernist structures, which have proved so inadequate and repellent that they themselves have since been replaced.”

A thought that could certainly apply to most on his list of Birmingham’s shame.

* Lost Victorian Britain by Gavin Stamp in published by Arum Press.

* THE WOODMAN

The Woodman pub which once stood on Easy Row, off Broad Street, is a huge loss to the city. Instead of a painted sign it features a grand statue of a wood cutter over the main entrance.

Its exterior was grand and photographs show a very comfortable interior. Built in 1891-2 by the architect Henry Naden, it was popular with councillors, nipping in after meetings at the Council House nearby and later on students from the School of Art. It was demolished in 1965, a victim of the city inner ring road.

* NEW STREET STATION

New Street Station, is currently undergoing its second major redevelopment as the bleak, dingy subterranean 1960s station is being replaced.

It was the first incarnation, built between 1849-54, which earned the name Grand Central Station. The platforms were covered in a giant single span arched roof, once Britain’s biggest. This magnificent iron roof was damaged by the Luftwaffe in 1940 and removed between 1948-52. Also built in 1854 was the elegant Queen’s Hotel which boasted an Italian influenced frontage on Stephenson Street.

These were fully demolished during the mid 1960s when New Street was redeveloped, complete with the shopping centre above.

* GREAT WESTERN HOTEL

The Grand Hotel on Colmore Row is still standing, but listed as an at risk Victorian masterpiece. It was once matched in its splendour by the 1860s Great Western Hotel. The combined hotel and entrance to Snow Hill Station faced St Philips Cathedral. It’s Italian influence front was designed by JA Chatwin. Once the finest hotel in Birmingham, it was due to be replaced when the Second World War broke out. Eventually bulldozed in 1971, after Snow Hill lost its main line status.

* VICTORIAN CENTRAL LIBRARY

The wave of 1960s rebuilding also claimed the Victorian Central Library. Stamp says: “It was demolished not because it was redundant or impractical, but because it did not fit in with the new civic vision the car-obsessed city developed after the Second World War.”

The original building was designed by Edward Middleton Barry and later extended with the Central Reference Library designed by Martin and Chamberlain. Damaged by fire in 1879 it was rebuilt by JH Chamberlain. It complimented the Town Hall, which has recently been restored to its original condition.

John Madin’s 1960s replacement, the existing Central Library was the largest public library in Europe but, like New Street Station is widely viewed as a blot on Birmingham’s landscape. It is scheduled to be demolished during the next decade.

Joe Holyoak recalls: “This was a turning point for the VSBG; we lost the 1973 public inquiry and the building was demolished the next year, but we made the case well for 19th century architecture, and it slowly began to be taken more seriously in Birmingham from then onwards. The VSBG presented several witnesses; I gave evidence about the significance of Martin and Chamberlain. I said that the Central Library and the nearby School of Art were their two finest works. ‘That’s all right then’ replied the City Council’s QC, ‘We have no plans to demolish the School of Art, so one good building will remain’. A magnificent interior, in particular the vertiginous entrance and staircase hall, with the staircase climbing elegantly around three of the four sides.”

* BISHOP’S HOUSE

The celebrated designer of the Houses of Parliament AWN Pugin was responsible for a number of Birmingham’s famous buildings, including St Chad’s Cathedral and Erdington Abbey. His red brick Bishop’s House in Bath Street was a gothic masterpiece, sacrificed to make way for the inner ring road in 1960.

VSBG Chairman Stephen Hartland remarks: “I understand that this was one of our first campaigns or certainly a campaign that led to the formation of the Birmingham Group. Sadly we lost that one.”

* CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER

The Cathedral like Church of the Redeemer, built for the Baptists in 1881-82 on Hagley Road. It boasted a distinctive and impressive tower. Demolished in 1975. Stephan Hartland adds: “A great loss as it was a magnificent building.”