One of the key aspects of the new Handsworth Heritage trail is its connection with some of the faith buildings around Handsworth. Many of these buildings are spectacular and add immense vaule to the way the neighbourhood looks today. Some of them have pretty impressive history such as St Mary’s Church which has stones that can be dated back to 1160.
If you start the trail at Soho House it takes you through the garden at St Micheal’s Church built in 1850.
Across the road the trail takes you past the Guru Nanak Niiskam Sewak Jatha, which sits impressively at the bottom of the Soho Rd in Handsworth.
The trail then takes you up Thornhill Rd into Handsworth Park where St Mary’s Church is situated on its boundary by Hamstead Rd. I was very lucky in 2009 I got the chance to get up on the roof of the tower and look at accross Birmingham, what a few. Not for the faint hearted thou as it is quite a treck up the tower which isn’t really very easy to access so isn’t open to the public. For pictures showing outisde of St Mary’s visit the photostream for the trail on flickr
The next part of the trail takes you up to Oxhill Rd and past St Andrews Church dates back to early part of the 19th century
You can download a copy of the heritage trail from this site click on the heritage trail page
Hi Tracey, Did you know the Shri Guru Ravidass Bhawan on Union Row (just off Soho Road) has recently set up it’s own website? You can see it at http://www.gururavidassbhawan.org
Thanks Ravi, I have created a link for faith and added. Let me know if there are any stories or things we can add to the blog or magazine to create some links.
Hi there. Please can you also add the Shree Geeta Bhawan Hindu Temple to the Faith section? This is the first Hindu temple opened in the midlands and has been there since 1969. It was originally the St George’s Presbyterian Church. Have a look at the wikipedia page I have created for the temple too. Just search for Shree Geeta Bhawan in Wikipedia.
St Andrew’s church was consecrated in 1909 (20th century, not 19th). It is a Grade 1 listed building and a fine example o th or of architect WH Bidlake.
Sorry, that should say ‘…fine example of the work of architect…’