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Horse Fair, BIRMINGHAM, B1 1DA

A few embattled older survivors. The spired corner building was the White Lion pub, by James & Lister Lea, 1896, for Davenports. Grade II listed. JLL was also responsible for the gabled building, 1898-99, one quarter of which has been lost. The building sandwiched between is late C18th.

The historic Horsefair is now part of Suffolk Street Queensway, connecting the city centre to Bristol Road. A jumble of 19th & 20th century buildings can be seen on the eastern side. Behind them rises the recently-rebuilt home of the Birmingham Royal Ballet at the Birmingham Hippodrome, with its blue and yellow cladding,

View of historic buildings at corner of Thorp Street. See Image] for another view.

Photo taken from Centenary Square.

Refurbished frontages of buildings on corner of Queensway. This was once the site of Scala Cinema (later named Odeon Queensway). The blue facia running horizontally in the foreground is the wall of the underpass from Suffolk Street Queensway that emerges here.

Scarlets describes itself as a restaurant, night club and bar. Previously the Radius Bar & Club was here. Going back through time, this building has also been The White Lion pub and The Red Lion pub. The position is complicated, and the following information is based on a post by someone called Mike on the very interesting Birmingham History Forum. From the late 1800's up to 1899, number 34 Horse Fair was The Red Lion pub. Next door, round the corner at 27 Thorp Street, was another pub called The White Lion. In about 1900, the two pubs seem to have been amalgamated, which no doubt involved some building alterations. The enlarged and combined pub took the name The White Lion, and the address was 34 Horse Fair, no doubt because the main entrance was on that street. After 1900, the address 27 Thorp Street disappears from the records, though what had been that building was of course now part of 34 Horse Fair. Image

Built 1896 the upper floors of the building have most period features surviving.

From the top deck of the X21 bus.

Part of the development of the Inner Ring Road, this originally housed a cinema and offices. By James Roberts, 1962-64. Apparently the cinema is still buried inside somewhere but has been closed for some years.

Horse Fair connects Holloway Circus - a roundabout of the 1960s Birmingham ring road - to Bristol Street, which leads into Bristol Road. Mosaic murals in the pedestrian underpass of Holloway Circus depict the horse market which took place here in the 19th century. The photo is taken from outside Scala House looking towards Clydesdale Tower, one of the Sentinels - see their Wikipedia page here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sentinels .