Hidden City: Christchurch Passage, New Street

It's been a funny old day. I set off for a classic drift, themed on letting the alleys & passages that so often betray a city's history, bring themselves to my attention as I wandered. For a start a local character, known as Lawnmower Man, seemed to be everywhere I went, to the extent that I began to suspect he was actually stalking me. I think he's a Bearwoodian - I have seen him drinking Lambrini out of the bottle outside The Bear, & am informed he's banned from that pub. Today he was drinking outside The Square Peg, bless him. I wanted to go to the Chinese quarter, & decided the easiest way is through the station, & was astounded to find the lawnmower already outside the other side of the station when I got there! I think he beat me there because I was genuinely wandering slowly, but also bought some trackie bottoms from the Heart Foundation shop. I explored various passages: I was thinking of a broader passage-based post, but googling Christchurch Passage astounded me as to its history.

I knew that there had been shops along it at one time, but didn't know there was a church, until 1895, & from which the passage takes its name. Nowadays the oldest things round there are the Town Hall & then the rather dominant Council House, so it's also easy to forget that for much of Christ Church's life the Council House wasn't there. Of course the irony is that where there was once a church, there is now the statue popularly known as the floozy in the jacuzzi: today a pigeon rested on her head as I went past. Perhaps the floozy is a better image of the spirit of the city than any number of churches.

'Built in 1805 by public subscription at a time when seats in most churches were rented, leased or even held freehold, it was built to alleviate the shortage of free seats in the town. With all the ground-floor seats free and only the galleries reserved for rent it was long known as the Free Church.�

'The land was given by a local landowner, W P Inge whose ancestors had given the site of St Philip's Church just down the road. Set in the angle between Colmore Row) and New Street, the church stood above the level of New Street and was approached by a wide flight of steps at the west end. At that time this was the north-western limit of the town.

'Christ Church was a stone building designed in a neo-classical style with a small apsidal chancel and a west portico of three bays supported on Doric columns.�

'The square west tower was surmounted by an octagonal belfry with Ionic pilasters and a balustraded parapet, above which was an octagonal spire. The tower, originally been designed with a cupola rather than a spire, was not completed until 1814, the year following its consecration.�

'The design was by local architect and sculptor William Hollins, but the work was carried out by the Birmingham builder and surveyor, Charles Norton. King George III was to have opened the church, but due to his indisposition, the ceremony was performed by the Earl of Dartmouth. Nonetheless, the King gave �1000 towards the completion of the building.

'The cost of building turned out to be more than anticipated, so the trustees applied to Parliament for permission to convert the arches under the church into catacombs. They proposed selling spaces for �4 each and they themselves bought one third of them. However, up until 1818 only two corpses had been interred there. It was hoped, �that when the inhabitants are familiarised to that mode of sepulture, they will prefer them to the present custom of erecting vaults, which are attended with considerably more expense.��

'In 1865 a parish was assigned from those of St Martin's and St Philip's.

'As the City Centre turned increasingly to business and commerce, the central population moved to districts immediately outside the City Centre. The congregation fell to unsustainable levels and the church closed in 1897 and was demolished two years later. The parish was merged with St Philip's The proceeds from the sale of the land helped to fund the building of St Agatha's Church in Sparkbrook.

'Burials from the catacombs beneath the church were transferred to the Church of England Cemetery catacombs in Warstone Lane, including the remains of John Baskerville. The Angel Fountain of 1850 was moved to St Philip's Cathedral.' (http://ahistoryofbirminghamchurches.jimdo.com/birmingham-st-martin-in-the-bull-ring/christ-church-new-street/)

A comparison of the then-&-now images show that actually the handrail has remained unchanged: an interesting survival, given the almost complete change in that area.

------------------