Perry Barr is an inner-city area in north
BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the second-most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 ....
, England. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. The constituency includes the smaller Perry Barr ward and the wards of
Handsworth WoodHandsworth Wood is a loosely defined area in the north west of Birmingham, England. It is also a ward within the formal district of Perry Barr. Located within the metropolitan county of the West Midlands since April 1, 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, it was previously a part of the...
,
Lozells and East HandsworthLozells and East Handsworth is a ward in Birmingham, England, created at the June 2004 elections. It is within the formal district of Perry Barr.The ward covers the areas of Handsworth, Lozells and Handsworth Park.-Politics:...
, and
OscottOscott is a ward in the northwest of Birmingham, England, within the formal district of Perry Barr.The Ward is centred on the area known as Old Oscott, and should not be confused with nearby New Oscott. It includes the former Booths Farm sand quarry, Aldridge Road Recreation Ground, Witton Cemetery...
. Birmingham Perry Barr is also a parliamentary constituency; its
Member of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a parliament. In many countries the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a unique title, such as senate, and thus also have unique titles for its members, such as senators. Members of...
is
Khalid MahmoodKhalid Mahmood is a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. He has been Member of Parliament for Birmingham Perry Barr since the 2001 general election....
.
"Perry" means small, and is derived from the Latin
(not "
pearPerry is an alcoholic beverage made of fermented pear juice. It is similar to cider, in that it is made using a similar process and often has a similar alcoholic content, up to 8.5% alcohol by volume...
", as some sources claim) and "Barr" means "
hillA hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain, in a limited area. Hills often have a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to a particular section of scarp slope without a well-defined summit A hill is a landform that extends above the...
".
Perry Barr is an inner-city area in north
BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the second-most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 ....
, England. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. The constituency includes the smaller Perry Barr ward and the wards of
Handsworth WoodHandsworth Wood is a loosely defined area in the north west of Birmingham, England. It is also a ward within the formal district of Perry Barr. Located within the metropolitan county of the West Midlands since April 1, 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, it was previously a part of the...
,
Lozells and East HandsworthLozells and East Handsworth is a ward in Birmingham, England, created at the June 2004 elections. It is within the formal district of Perry Barr.The ward covers the areas of Handsworth, Lozells and Handsworth Park.-Politics:...
, and
OscottOscott is a ward in the northwest of Birmingham, England, within the formal district of Perry Barr.The Ward is centred on the area known as Old Oscott, and should not be confused with nearby New Oscott. It includes the former Booths Farm sand quarry, Aldridge Road Recreation Ground, Witton Cemetery...
. Birmingham Perry Barr is also a parliamentary constituency; its
Member of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a parliament. In many countries the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a unique title, such as senate, and thus also have unique titles for its members, such as senators. Members of...
is
Khalid MahmoodKhalid Mahmood is a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. He has been Member of Parliament for Birmingham Perry Barr since the 2001 general election....
.
Etymology
"Perry" means small, and is derived from the Latin
(not "
pearPerry is an alcoholic beverage made of fermented pear juice. It is similar to cider, in that it is made using a similar process and often has a similar alcoholic content, up to 8.5% alcohol by volume...
", as some sources claim) and "Barr" means "
hillA hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain, in a limited area. Hills often have a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to a particular section of scarp slope without a well-defined summit A hill is a landform that extends above the...
". The name probably relates to the adjacent
Great BarrGreat Barr is a large and loosely-defined area which straddles the boundaries of Birmingham, West Bromwich and Walsall, West Midlands, England...
, including
Barr BeaconBarr Beacon is a hill on the edge of Walsall, West Midlands, England, very near the border with Birmingham. It gives its name to nearby Great Barr and to the local school Barr Beacon Language College. It is historically the site of a beacon where fires were lit in times of impending attack or on...
, the area's tallest peak.
History
Perry Barr was originally two separate entities, both mentioned in the
Domesday BookThe Domesday Book is the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William I of England, or William the Conqueror...
as 'Pirio' and 'Barre'. Pirio is recorded as having an estimated population of 35 and Barre with an estimated population of 25. William FitzAnsculf is recorded as being the tenant in chief of both manors, and Drogo as the tenant. It is thought that the two manors may have been combined in the Early
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
.
In 1874 Perry Barr established its own institute based on the model of the
Birmingham and Midland InstituteThe Birmingham and Midland Institute , now on Margaret Street in the city centre of Birmingham, England was a pioneer of adult scientific and technical education and today offers Arts and Science lectures, exhibitions and concerts. It is a registered charity...
. In 1878,
Henry IrvingSir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...
became the president of the Perry Barr Institute and addressed members of the institute on March 6 1878. His speech was reprinted in the March 13 release of
Theatre and also reprinted onto pamphlets by the institute's members and sold for a
sixpenceSixpence may refer to:*Sixpence *Sixpence *Sixpence *Flat cap, also called a sixpence*Sixpence None the Richer, a Christian pop/rock band...
to fund the construction of a new building for the institute.
Perry Barr was an
urban districtIn the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, an urban district was a type of local government district that covered an urbanised area. Urban districts had an elected Urban District Council , which shared local government responsibilities with a county council.-England and Wales:In England...
in
StaffordshireStaffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
from 1894 until 1928 when it was incorporated into
BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the second-most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 ....
, and thus also
WarwickshireWarwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton in the far north of the county. The shape of the administrative area Warwickshire differs considerably from that of the historic county...
. It then became part of the
West MidlandsThe West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a population of 2,591,300. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire...
in 1974 when Birmingham became a metropolitan borough in the county.
In the 1920s,
Oscar DeutschOscar Deutsch was the founder of the Odeon Cinemas chain in the United Kingdom.Deutsch was born in Birmingham, England, the son of a successful Hungarian Jewish scrap metal merchant. After attending King Edward VI Five Ways, he opened his first cinema in nearby Brierley Hill, Dudley in 1928...
opened his first ever
Odeon cinemaOdeon Cinemas is the largest chain of cinemas in Europe and is wholly based within the United Kingdom. It is owned by Odeon and UCI Cinemas Group whose ultimate parent is Terra Firma Capital Partners.-History:...
here. The original cinema is now a conference venue, having also been a bingo hall.
The site of the former Perry Hall is now
Perry Hall ParkPerry Hall Park is a park in Perry Barr, Birmingham, England, at . It was in Staffordshire until 1924....
. Perry Park hosted the Birmingham Carnival in 2005.
The 1920s
Perry Barr StadiumPerry Barr Stadium is a stadium and racetrack on Aldridge Road in Perry Barr, Birmingham, England....
on the Aldridge Road hosts greyhound racing and the
Birmingham BrummiesBirmingham Brummies are a British speedway team, who were reformed in 2006 and then accepted into the Premier League in 2007. The club race at Perry Barr Stadium ....
speedwayThe sport of Speedway in the United Kingdom has changed little since the first meetings in the 1920s. With three domestic leagues, its own Speedway Grand Prix and an annual entry into the Speedway World Cup it remains one of the popular motorsports in the country.-History:The first meeting in the...
team. It has a 500 seat capacity, and was refurbished in 2004. It is the former home of the
Birchfield HarriersBirchfield Harriers is an athletics club, founded in 1877. Its home is at Birmingham's Alexander Stadium, England.Their previous home, at nearby Perry Barr, is Perry Barr Stadium...
, whose badge, in
Art DecoArt Deco was a popular international art design movement from 1925 until the 1940s, affecting the decorative arts such as architecture, interior design, and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the graphic arts, and film...
style, bas relief it still carries.
Birchfield Community Library was opened in 1874 as the "Perry Barr Institute". It was converted into a
Carnegie-funded libraryCarnegie libraries are libraries which were built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. More than 2,500 Carnegie libraries were built, including some belonging to public and university library systems...
in September 1897. In early 2007, this library was demolished, due to its dilapidated condition. A new building is to be commissioned. Another library in the area is
Tower Hill Library.
Aston Technical CollegeNorth Birmingham Technical College is now part of Birmingham City University. The college was created in 1967 when Aston Technical College moved to Perry Barr but even then it was being earmarked as part of the proposed Birmingham Polytechnic...
(later North Birmingham Technical College) moved to a new site in Perry Barr in the late 1960s, and was incorporated into the creation of
Birmingham PolytechnicThe City of Birmingham Polytechnic was designated in 1971 and later on became the University of Central England in Birmingham in 1992...
(now Birmingham City University) in 1971. Two of the college's buildings exist as part of the university's City North Campus.
There is a large mall-style shopping centre in the district known as "One Stop" Shopping Centre. This was built in the early 1990s, replacing a previous, 1960s, shopping centre. To facilitate the 1990s construction, a length of the River Tame was diverted and canalised.
Transport
Major roads in the ward and constituency include the
M6 motorwayThe M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It runs from junction 19 of the M1 in Catthorpe near Rugby in central England, passes between Coventry and Nuneaton, through Birmingham, Walsall and Stafford and near the major cities of Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent...
and the A34. Bus routes operated by
National Express West MidlandsNational Express West Midlands is the brand name of West Midlands Travel Ltd , a company which operates bus services from depots in the cities of Birmingham, Coventry, and Wolverhampton, as well as the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, and Walsall in the West Midlands county of England, and some...
in the area include Nos 33, 51 & 52. The
A4040The A4040 is the Outer Ring Road in Birmingham, England. It is the route followed by the Birmingham Outer Circle bus route. It was formed mainly of redesignated old roads, unlike Birmingham's inner and middle ring road , which were mostly purpose built.Places along the route include:* Cotteridge*...
and A34 roads cross at Perry Barr, the former carrying the
Birmingham Outer CircleThe Birmingham Outer Circle is a roughly circular, 27 mile bus route in Birmingham, England . It follows the city's outer ring road, the A4040 with some small deviations....
bus routes.
To the south-west of the ward is the Walsall line, part of the old
Grand Junction RailwayThe Grand Junction Railway was an early railway company in the United Kingdom, which existed between 1833 and 1846 when it was merged into the London and North Western Railway...
, which has two railway stations within the boundaries of the ward;
Hamstead railway stationHamstead railway station serves the Hamstead, Great Barr and Handsworth Wood areas of the West Midlands, England, located at the junction of Rocky Lane and Old Walsall Road, in the city of Birmingham, on its border with Sandwell. It is situated on the Birmingham-Walsall Line, part of the former...
and
Perry Barr railway stationPerry Barr Railway Station is a railway station in Perry Barr, Birmingham, England.Although rebuilt around the time of electrification in the 1960s, it stands on the site of the original Grand Junction Railway station of 1838, and so is the oldest station on its original site in the city, and one...
. The latter, opened in 1837, is one of the oldest stations in the country to remain on its original site.
The
Tame Valley CanalThe Tame Valley Canal is a relatively late canal in the West Midlands of England. It forms part of the Birmingham Canal Navigations. It takes its name from the roughly-parallel River Tame.-Geography:...
bisects the ward, with boats from Salford Junction, under
Spaghetti (motorway) JunctionGravelly Hill Interchange, better known by its nickname Spaghetti Junction, is junction 6 of the M6 motorway where it meets the A38 Aston Expressway in Birmingham, United Kingdom....
climbing the 13-flight Perry Barr Locks towards Hamstead and on to Rushall Junction. There is a feeder reservoir, Perry Reservoir, in Perry Park.
The River Tame passes through the area and is crossed by several
bridgeA bridge is a structure built to span a valley, road, body of water, or other physical obstacle, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle. Designs of bridges vary depending on the function of the bridge and the nature of the terrain where the bridge is constructed.-History:The first...
s, including
Perry BridgePerry Bridge, also known as the Zig Zag Bridge, is a bridge over the River Tame in Perry Barr, Birmingham, England. Built in 1711, it is said to be the oldest surviving structure in Birmingham. It is a scheduled ancient monument and a Grade II listed building.The bridge was built, in the 18th...
, a scheduled ancient monument of 1711, on the line of the Roman Ryknild Street and its 1932 Art Deco replacement carrying the Aldridge Road. The old bridge appears on the badge of nearby
Handsworth Grammar SchoolHandsworth Grammar School is a selective school that admits boys from the age of eleven and boys who wish to join the Sixth Form , founded in 1862 and located in Handsworth, Birmingham, England...
.
Ward
The Perry Barr ward is part of the Birmingham Perry Barr parliamentary constituency. Following boundary changes in 2004, the eastern edge of the ward follows the
M6 motorwayThe M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It runs from junction 19 of the M1 in Catthorpe near Rugby in central England, passes between Coventry and Nuneaton, through Birmingham, Walsall and Stafford and near the major cities of Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent...
from
Spaghetti JunctionGravelly Hill Interchange, better known by its nickname Spaghetti Junction, is junction 6 of the M6 motorway where it meets the A38 Aston Expressway in Birmingham, United Kingdom....
near to junction 7 at
Great BarrGreat Barr is a large and loosely-defined area which straddles the boundaries of Birmingham, West Bromwich and Walsall, West Midlands, England...
, including parts of the communities of
WittonWitton is an inner city area in Birmingham, England, in the metropolitan county of the West Midlands. It was within the ancient parish of Aston in the Hemlingford hundred of the historic county of Warwickshire...
,
AstonAston is an Inner-City area of the City of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Lying to the north-east of the Birmingham City Centre, Aston constitutes an electoral ward within the council constituency of Ladywood.-History:...
, Perry Barr and
Great BarrGreat Barr is a large and loosely-defined area which straddles the boundaries of Birmingham, West Bromwich and Walsall, West Midlands, England...
.
As of 2004, the three councillors representing Perry Barr on Birmingham City Council are Ray Hassall, Karen Hamilton and Jon Hunt, all of them
Liberal DemocratsThe Liberal Democrats, often shortened to Lib Dems or just Liberals, are a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom, formed in 1988 by a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party; the two parties had been in alliance for seven years, from shortly after the formation of...
. Hassall was elected in 1990, Hunt in 2003 and Hamilton in 2004. Hamilton became the first black councillor elected for the ward.
Prior to 1990, the ward had a strong tendency towards the
Conservative PartyThe Conservative and Unionist Party, more commonly known as the Conservatives, the Conservative Party, or Tory Party is a conservative political party in the United Kingdom...
. No single party held all the seats in the ward between 1990 to 2004. The Liberal Democrats took a clean sweep at the 2004 Council Elections in which all seats were contested, but only after three recounts. In 2006, Hamilton increased her personal majority from 31 to more than 1,500.
The ward had
LabourThe Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded at the start of the 20th century, it has been seen since 1920 as the principal party of the Left in England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland, where it has only recently begun to organise again...
representation for a period, from 1995 till 2004 following the election of Mike Leddy (1995-2003), along with the defection of Ron Whitehouse from the Liberal Democrats to The Labour Party (2000-2004).
The ward has adopted a Ward Support Officer.
Election winners
- 1986 - Conservative
- 1987 - Conservative
- 1988 - Conservative
- 1990 - Liberal Democrat
- 1991 - Liberal Democrat
- 1992 - Conservative
- 1994 - Liberal Democrat
- 1995 - Labour
- 1996 - Liberal Democrat
- 1998 - Liberal Democrat
- 1999 - Labour
- 2000 - Liberal Democrat (defected to Labour within 12 months)
- 2002 - Liberal Democrat
- 2003 - Liberal Democrat
- 2004 - 3 x Liberal Democrat (following boundary changes)
- 2006 - Liberal Democrat
- 2007 - Liberal Democrat
Demographics
The
2001 Population CensusA nationwide census, commonly known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census....
recorded that 22,704 people were living in Perry Barr. 28.2% (6,410) of the ward's population was represented by ethnic minorities, compared with 29.6% for Birmingham in general.
Places of interest
- Birmingham City University's main campus
- Perry Barr Park
- Perry Hall Park
Perry Hall Park is a park in Perry Barr, Birmingham, England, at . It was in Staffordshire until 1924....
- Alexander Stadium
The Alexander Stadium is the main athletics stadium located within Perry Park in Perry Barr, Birmingham, England, at . It has staged the Amateur Athletics Association Championships, and was the venue of the 1998 Disability World Athletics Championships...
- Perry Barr Stadium
Perry Barr Stadium is a stadium and racetrack on Aldridge Road in Perry Barr, Birmingham, England....
External links