What Birmingham looked like before its shopping centres were built
A look back at life before the shopping centres were built
They are all familiar landmarks to us all, but there was once a time before they were built. We take a look back in time when the shopping centres of the area were only dreams.
There has been a Bull Ring at the same site for around 1,000 years. The late Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, opened the Bull Ring Centre on 29 May, 1964, and at its time, was one of the biggest outside the USA.
The Queen visited the following year, and the centre lasted until the brand new Bullring we know today, (now one word), which opened when Bully burst out of his wooden crate on 4 September, 2003.
Touchwood Shopping Centre in Solihull was always known as the Civic Hall car park, a massive open-air surface car park, until it opened its doors on 5 September, 2001. The Queen made a visit to the shopping centre a year later in July 2002.
Other centres like Perry Barr and Chelmsley Wood were only fields, with Chelmsley very much on the edge of the Brum, only forming part of Solihull when it became a Metropolitan Borough in 1974.
The Bull Ring in the early twentieth century with St Martin’s Church at the centre.
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The Bull Ring in the early 1900s, with the old Fish Market and Market Hall on the left.
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Traders in the Bull Ring outside the Market hall in the 1890s.
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A packed Bull Ring on July 27, 1955. On the right is Woolworths’ on the left is Nelson’s Statue, with St Martin’s Church in the centre.
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The Bull Ring in the 1950s.
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