Spirit of place: Soho

Yes, that's right, Birmingham, in common with many other cities, has a Soho. I walked through it today without meaning to, which sounds silly but is true. It seems what I unintentionally walked was the Soho Loop of the canal, which I did by getting onto the canal down the side of Winson Green prison, a stretch of the canal I knew existed but knew no more about than that, except to assume that it would go to the city centre at some point. I also discovered that you can walk further around next to the wall of the prison than I thought you could.

None of this may sound worthy of a spirit of place post until I provide the context that this is one of the older parts of the city as we know it, & which saw much of its development. I see that that stretch of the canal was completed in 1769 - not old old, but relatively old given that the majority of Birmingham's development took place in the industrial revolution & afterwards. This canal section's status is open & useable, despite being bypassed by the new canal in 1827. I've commented before that spirit of place is influenced by the nature of what takes place there: in this case the loop of canal (the first picture shows how curved the canal is) contains 110 acres of densely-populated land, 49 acres by City Hospital, & the rest by dense housing and industry.

City Hospital started out life as Birmingham Workhouse. The second picture shows the 'gate of tears' by which those entering the workhouse would go in. I don't think you can actually see it at all at present: the site is very overgrown, & I don't know what will happen to it when the hospital moves to a new site in Smethwick. Nonetheless the workhouse/hospital is exactly the sort of institution that contributes to strong emotions imprinted into the carbon of a place.

Similarly the area was an early site for the development of the industry for which Birmingham was/is known, & the hopes, dreams & despair of running businesses will have pressed their own emotions into the place. I feel that the activity of a place causes a spirit of place change in itself, & industry is no exception. Of course industry & canals went together for purely practical purposes, but I like that energetic mixture. I am a fire sign myself, & I will often seek out water to temper my own fieryness. Towards the end of the loop there is an electricity place (third picture) right next to the canal, placing both fire & water together, then the railway line crosses the canal, & I would attribute railways to fire myself. Possibly only electric ones, though.

The energetic signature of the place is very Birmingham: unpretentious, busy, & strangely welcoming. I liked it.

Then the best bit came at the end of the Soho loop: the Rotton Park canal junction, a genuine city cross roads (fourth picture, and I think I'm going to try to find a better one of it to replace Spaghetti Junction as the background photo for this blog). That junction bears all the psychic imprints of several centuries of travelling, even of joggers today. Today, bizarrely, someone was camping down the side of the bridge in the picture, even with a line of washing up. And that's the point of a crossroads, it's a place of coming & going, which because it has seen so many facilitates transformations. In fact since Sandwell Council ruined my favourite crossroads by improving the lighting, I may transfer my affections to that one for my sacrifices & to leave spell stuff. It didn't feel dangerous - no needles or anything about - but I may go back in the evening to see what it feels like.

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