Around Digbeth and Deritend, Birmingham

A recently relocated Londoner, I have been quite struck by Bradford Street with its rows of semi-derelict factory buildings and cleared sites, the likes of which one rarely sees in the smoke. A stone's throw from the City Centre and adjacent to Birmingham Coach Station, it perhaps illustrates the decline of manufacturing and light industry in Birmingham as well as the decline of traditional public houses in the area from nearly twenty down to two,

Bradford Street is named after Henry Bradford (b.1698), a Quaker timber merchant, whose Warner Fields Estate stretched from the River Rea to Bordesley in what was then Aston. In 1767 he offered to donate land in Bradford Street to anyone who wished to establish a business there.

Facade of former cash and carry

St. Anne's Church , Alcester Street (corner Bradford Street), Digbeth, B12

Founded in 1849, Saint Anne's Church is one of the oldest Christian Missions in Birmingham. John Henry Newman (later Cardinal), born in 1801, was its first parish priest.

St. Anne's Church

In 1847 the failure of the Potato Crop in Ireland caused a great famine and many Irish people migrated to England in search of food and work. Many settled in Birmingham, especially in Deritend. They became the Congregation of John Henry Newman, when he set up his earlier church in a disused Gin Distillery. To this day even though very few dwellings exist around the Church - the majority of the hundreds of Worshippers, are Irish or of Irish descent.

St. Anne's Church

St. Anne's Parish Centre

St. Anne's Church is, as we see when we visit Bradford Street, surrounded by factories, warehouses and office blocks often in various states of dereliction and demolition. The Church remains a spiritual home for Birmingham’s Irish Community, despite the decay that surrounds it.