Qualla: Centenary Square

Centenary Square: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit metrogogo, CC BY-SA 2.0. On a July night in 1791, a Birmingham mob set fire to John Baskerville's old house on this land. He had been dead sixteen years by then, but his grave was in the garden, and the rioters did not stop for it. The fire was part of the Priestley Riots, three days of arson aimed at Dissenters, scientists, and anyone associated with the wrong politics of revolution. The house came down, the gardens went under iron foundries, and by the late twentieth century the gardens and the foundries alike were gone, replaced by Centenary Square - named in 1989 for the hundredth year since Birmingham became a city, and now the most-walked civic space in the West Midlands.

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Image: metrogogo | CC BY-SA 2.0

Centenary Square: The Civic Centre That Never Was

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit William Haywood, Public domain. William Haywood published a book in 1918 called The Development of Birmingham, in which he proposed a grand civic centre west of Victoria Square. His sketches included a cathedral, two exhibition halls, a Natural History Museum, a War Museum, an Opera House, a new post office, an...

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Image: William Haywood | Public domain

Centenary Square: Tess Jaray's Persian Rug

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Artrix, CC BY-SA 3.0. When the International Convention Centre and Symphony Hall opened on the western end in 1991 and 1992, the council finally had a reason to finish the square. They renamed it for the centenary, built Centenary Way across the Inner Ring Road so pedestrians could walk in from Paradi...

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Image: Artrix | CC BY-SA 3.0

Centenary Square: The Lurpak Sculpture

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Graham Taylor, CC BY-SA 2.0. Raymond Mason's sculpture Forward was unveiled in the square in 1991. It depicted a procession of Birmingham figures striding into the future - workers, families, civic faces - rendered in painted fibreglass at a price of two hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds. The Birmingh...

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Image: Graham Taylor | CC BY-SA 2.0

Centenary Square: Boulton, Watt, and Murdoch

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Philip Halling, CC BY-SA 2.0. On the south side of the square, gold-leafed and looking purposeful, three Victorian-era industrialists in bronze are bent over a set of engine drawings. The statue is William Bloye's, unveiled 14 September 1956, depicting Matthew Boulton, James Watt, and William Murdoch in the m...

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Image: Philip Halling | CC BY-SA 2.0

Centenary Square: What the Square Holds Now

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit author and original uploader was G-Man at en.wikipedia, Public domain. The Library of Birmingham opened on the north side in 2013. Its skin of interlocking metal circles makes it instantly recognisable from any window facing the square. The Rep Theatre sits next to it. Baskerville House holds council offices in the building begun in 1938 and finishe...

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Image: author and original uploader was G-Man at en.wikipedia | Public domain