Conclusion

For close on 270 years Hurst Street has stood still while history has ebbed and flowed around it. Birmingham people will best remember Hurst Street in the 1950’s as a quiet shopping street, also a place to go if you needed a new suit of clothes, or wanted to see a show at the Hippodrome Theatre, or enjoy a drink in one of its many public houses.

During the late 1980’s and through the 1990’s the appearance and demographics of Hurst Street changed dramatically. Almost all of the old shops and buildings have gradually disappeared, replaced by large office and apartments blocks, an assortment of Asian restaurants and clubs now dominate the street. Archaic properties and public houses have been refurbished and reopened as LBGTQ venues. A huge development in Hurst Street of apartments and offices is currently under construction between Claybrook Street and Skinner Lane.

Through all its years of existence Hurst Street has always been the home for respectable, hard working and industrious people. It has never been pretentious, it has never been bawdy or flamboyant (apart from once a year during the Pride Weekend). Today although the majority of the old buildings have disappeared, Hurst Street and its people still attempt to maintain those traditions, standards and work ethics.

Situated in Hurst Street within close proximity to each other are three properties which epitomise all of the characteristics of this remarkable street . They are the Birmingham Back to Back Houses (1830), Bir- mingham Hippodrome (1898), and The Sly Old Fox public house (1891).

Birmingham Back to Backs

The Birmingham Back to Backs Museum represent the social housing and the likely working environments of people living and endeavouring to earn a wage in Hurst Street. These small but compact houses, sometimes called “two up one down” were the most economical and practical solution to working class housing. What they also created, perhaps not by intention, were close communities, where neighbourliness and camaraderie was a way of life, surviving in their tightly packed court yards.

Work spaces were created inside the houses, thus saving money on renting a property. The living area or bedroom converted into workshops, with the dinner table or beds pushed against a wall to accommodate perhaps, a work bench, maybe a small hand press, or a polishing machine. Also working from home, mother’s and children could be involved in ill-paid, tiring and repetitive jobs. Wrapping up hair pins in paper, carding safety pins, varnishing pen holders, carding of hooks and eyes the sewing of buttons on to cards and chopping firewood to sell in bundles. Many of the street facing houses converted their front rooms into shops, using the window to display and serve their goods from, eventually be- coming reputable retail premises in later years.

The Birmingham Hippodrome

The Hippodrome Theatre almost certainly the most important building
ever to grace Hurst Street, represents the close association the street
has with the entertainment business, and still has today. Once
boasting of an Moorish influenced tower which could always be seen
in any photograph of Hurst Street or the surrounding areas. The people of Birmingham have been flocking to this theatre for well over a
hundred years, through the Edwardian music hall day, two World
Wars, the swinging sixties and up to the present day. Currently Hurst
Street has an assortment of clubs and places of entertainment serving a diverse audience, but nowhere compares with the Hippodrome for longevity, style, class and for continually providing top rate entertainment from its permanent position on the corner of Inge Street and Hurst Street.

The Sly Old Fox

On the opposite side of the street is The Fox, to give it original title. This public house represents the social drinking habits of the time and those of the inhabitants of Hurst Street. At any one point in time along Hurst Street there were well over half a dozen pubs, all of them packed on a Saturday night with family, friends and neighbours, all enjoying a drink, a smoke, a game of darts or dominoes and a sing-song around the “Joanna“ (piano). Each pub was unique, having its own personality, its own reputation and its own character. These traits were based on architecture, history, locality, landlords and customers past and present. The pubs of Hurst Street supplied, warmth, sustenance, amusement and companionship for all of their regulars.

It is ironic that our walk through history along Hurst Street began with The Tivoli Theatre and The Empire then visited Snobs Night Club and the many clubs and bars addressing the tastes of the folk congregating in the area, all of them a typical example of the entertainment venues of their day.

That once small passageway has developed in to one of Birmingham’s leading thoroughfares. During its long and illustrious existence, Hurst Street has been many things to many people.

Hurst Street will feed you, it will house you, it will entertain you, it will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will inform you, it will provide a living, it will host diverse people, it will depict multi-cultures, it will give you a future, but what is more important, it will give you a fascinating past.

Thank You, Hurst Street

DK