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.
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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.