Summer Lane, Birmingham
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Summer Lane, Birmingham by A J Paxton as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Summer Lane, Birmingham
Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 18 Mar 2022
Summer Lane runs south from Aston through the Gunsmiths' Quarter into Snow Hill on the northern edge of Birmingham city centre. In this photo the twin spires of St Chad's, the Catholic cathedral by Snow Hill, can just be seen in the distance among the high rise blocks of central Birmingham. The building in the foreground at the top left of the photo was a pub, the Stag's Head; a montage of photos from its history can be seen in this YouTube video from the Birmingham History Forum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAicncubFU4 . Old Summer Lane was a densely-built up district of factories, workshops, pubs and houses. It had its own song, 'See the Palm Trees Swaying', the title an ironic reference to the street's summery name. After the second world war the city council redeveloped the area and renamed it Newtown. The housing was condemned as slums and demolished. The modern commercial buildings in this photo are representative of the street today between Snow Hill and the ring road. For more on Summer Lane see this article by Carl Chinn in the Birmingham Evening Mail 26th April 2008 reproduced here https://astonbrook-through-astonmanor.co.uk/summerlane/introduction.html .
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
52.49149
Longitude
-1.89907