Inge Street

Running between the Back to Backs and the Hippodrome Theatre is Inge Street, named after the Inge family. Inge Street marks the border between the Gooch and the Inge Estates.

Inge Street appeared un-named on a map of 1791. It was a relatively new street when it was the home to the young George Jacob Holyoake in the early 1820’s .

Amongst the wealthiest of the landowning families of Birmingham were the Inge’s of Thorpe Constantine in Staffordshire. Recalled in Thorp Street and Inge Street (although it seems to have lost an “e” somewhere in the mists of time!). The Inge family owned much of the City Centre through their relationship to the Philips family, who were another very wealthy landowning family who had a long connection to Birmingham and its districts. They owned land in Erdington from before 1250. In the succeeding centuries each generation of these families appeared to grow more prosperous. With the death of Robert Philips the family direct line ceased to exist and through marriage to a female heiress his lands passed to Theodore William Inge. Between 1753 and 1825 various acts of Parliament allowed building on the Birmingham estates. The family continued to own much of the north side of Inge Street until 1956, when Mary Caroline Inge sold her properties to pay death duties.

As we continue our Hurst Street walk we will turn into Inge Street and the first property on the left is Court 15 with the entry to the courtyard. The next set of photographs show the property in 2001 when all the surrounding buildings had been demolished and again in more recent times when the restoration of Court 15 had been completed.

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Next door to the shop on the corner is No 54 Inge Street, which was occupied by Harry Cohen in the 1950s, 60s & 70s. As well as being a tailor, Harry offered a “pressing service” and it is said that if you went upstairs at his shop in the early evening you would find it full of young lads sitting about on their underpants having a smoke. They were waiting for Harry to “press” their trousers with razor-sharp creases so that they’d look smart for a night out on the town!

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This is a great photograph of Harry Cohen (left) standing outside his tailors shop at 54 Inge Street in 1953. Harry called himself “tailor to the stars”. He probably was, as many of the famous acts appearing at the Hippodrome would visit or send their stage costumes to his shop for alteration or repair. The ceiling of his reception was covered with black and white photographs of all of the variety stars who had paid Harry a visit over the years. The premises are now part of the Back to Backs.

Next to the Back to Backs in Inge Street was the exit to Worthington’s Coaches’ garage – here’s a photograph of the garage with Court 15 Inge Street in the background.

If we take another look at the map of Inge Street from 1950 we can see that virtually all the properties between the coach garage and the far end of the street have gone. There was a severe bombing raid in 1940 that seems to have run down the length of Hurst Street and as we’ve already found out, caused terminal damage to at least one significant building. An incendiary bomb landed on the roof of the Hippodrome Theatre but it was reported that the resident fire-watcher Mr H Palmer, “ripped off his shirt and smothered the bomb”! We suspect it was his coat as it was in December and he would not have been out on the roof in just his shirt, we think! We know that an incendiary landed in the courtyard of Court 15 but did not ignite and there were other places that may have been hit as the Luftwaffe aircraft tried to locate the Fisher & Ludlow factory where parts for military vehicles would have been made.

So if we make our way to the end of Inge Street we will find, on the corner, a pub.

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This is a pub with a severe identity crisis. Could it be because it’s so far from …. well, almost anything, that it does not attract much custom, in spite of being just across the road from the Hippodrome (the wrong end of the Hippodrome)? It was built in 1894/5 and the architects were James & Lister Lea – prolific designers of pubs and other public buildings in Birmingham. The above photographs indicate it was called the Queens Tavern in 2011 which was its original name. Two years later it the Queen Elizabeth, then by 2020 Privia (a late night drinking establishment – it opened at 10pm!). Then by 2021 it had become the Tropicana. Quite what happened in the 116 years up to 2011 we do not know – but the building is still there.

But now it’s time to cross Inge Street to find out more about this little street which has so many stories to tell.

Across the road today is the location of Court 7 Inge Street and this is where today we find the loading bay for The Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre.

The loading bay is to the left of the site of the Mission Hall seen here which stood behind the Hippodrome until the 1980s when the stage was extended to make it the largest outside of London. This is the Inge Street side of the theatre today (2021).

The part of the building that forms a “box” above the brick walls (with the word “Hippodrome” on it) is the Fly Tower which stands above the stage which itself is about 16 feet below street level! In fact the loading bay door with the canopy above (it in the centre of the photograph) allows an articulated lorry trailer to be driven backwards into the building and lowered down below stage level so that large scenery items can be rolled out directly onto the stage.

But let’s head off along Inge Street to visit the oldest building still standing on Hurst Street.

As we arrive back at Court 15 Inge Street we can see the entry that leads to the courtyard of this National Trust property. A formal guided tour of the area by Tour Guides from the National Trust would end here in the courtyard. If you’ve made this tour yourself, pop into the Back to Backs reception to find out more about a tour of the houses here from two centuries.

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