A walk through Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter with Kevin Thomas

National World - LocalTV

We're in the heart of Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter, where a hidden doorway leads to an architectural treasure. Once a bustling hub for fine jewellery and later a crucial wartime industry, this Georgian courtyard offers a fascinating look into the city's industrial and cultural history.

Transcript

00:00So we're on Warstone Lane in the Jewellery Quarter and this was one of the original roads

00:08that made up Jewellery Quarter, Warstone Lane and Vice Street.

00:11But amazingly this only became a shopping centre in the 1970s, before that this would

00:18have been manufacturing, jewellery would have been sent all over Britain and all over the

00:24world to be sold.

00:26And what I really love is the door behind me which is Rose Place and people are really

00:31surprised when I bring them here and say we can go through there and have a look what

00:36was through there.

00:38And it's a lovely Georgian doorway and you can see above it it's got these lovely features

00:43where it's got roundels above it which mirror the doorway and the people that own the building

00:50really value it and have looked after the door.

00:53So when I bring people down here and show them about the Jewellery Quarter one of the

00:57things they're really surprised is when we manage to go through here and let's have a

01:01look what it would have been like in Georgian times and we can open the door and this leads

01:08us to Rose Place.

01:12Once we get into Rose Place what we've got is this fantastic Georgian architecture with

01:17the balcony, colours are brilliant but this was designed, this is what would have been

01:22a court and this was designed because there was no electricity and so they made these

01:28big windows inside a square court so that light could get in for the people doing the

01:34jewellery work.

01:36And now people see them and think they're possibly car parks but of course these were

01:40designed before cars were here and there would have been buildings all around here.

01:44This has been damaged by bombing during the Second World War in fact it was targeted because

01:50lots of the people that were working very fine work went on to making fuses for bombs

01:56and for shells to help with the war effort so the Germans actually targeted this and

02:02if you look at old photographs of the Jewellery Quarter just after the Second World War it

02:06seems like there was almost no building that didn't suffer some damage and the people,

02:12this would have been a factory behind me, this would have been where they would have

02:15been manufacturing jewellery, to be shipped all over it was taken to the canal network

02:21which meant it went to Worcester, which meant it went to the River Severn and it could go

02:25all around the world and this is a really precious little part of the Jewellery Quarters.

02:31So when I bring people here they love it and they really like this window into the past

02:37and ironically all of this was due to be knocked down in redevelopment after the war

02:44and now they're actually applying for World Heritage status because it's such a precious

02:48part of the history of Birmingham and it's really nice to have the privilege to be able

02:53to come in and see some of this from the inside.

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