Qualla: Digbeth https://qualla.com/digbeth en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/digbeth-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Digbeth https://qualla.com/digbeth Digbeth: Introduction https://qualla.com/digbeth/ Photo credit Stephen Harris, CC BY-SA 3.0. Steven Knight announced in February 2022 that he was building a film studio in Digbeth, the same Birmingham district where his television series Peaky Blinders had set its fictional version of the same district. The decision closed a loop a hundred years wide. The real Peaky Blinders had been a loose Birmingham street-gang label from the 1880s to the 1920s - young men from the working-class quarters known for assault, pickpocketing, and extortion. The popular story that their flat caps held sewn-in razor blades is, according to historian Carl Chinn, almost certainly apocryphal; safety-razor blades did not arrive in Britain until 1908, well after the gang's name was already in the newspapers. The fictional version turned into the most internationally successful British drama of the 2010s, and now it would be filmed on the streets it had mythologised. Digbeth has always been good at reinventing itself, sometimes by accident.

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Image: Stephen Harris | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/digbeth-wp/gcqd-digbeth-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Digbeth: Dig Path or Duck's Bath https://qualla.com/digbeth/ Photo credit Erebus555, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first settlement here dates to the seventh century. The land west of the River Rea was historically part of Birmingham parish; the land east of it was Deritend, part of the much larger parish of Aston. The Old Crown, Birmingham's oldest secular building, stands in Deritend - ...

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Image: Erebus555 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/digbeth-wp/gcqd-digbeth-dig-path-or-ducks-bath.mp3 0:06 2 full Digbeth: An Italian Quarter, Then Internment https://qualla.com/digbeth/ Photo credit Richard Symonds, CC BY 3.0. In the second half of the nineteenth century an Italian community grew up around Fazeley Street. Immigrants from villages in southern Italy made their lives here, opened cafes and ice-cream shops and grocery stores, attended Catholic Mass at St Peter's. The community had begun to...

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Image: Richard Symonds | CC BY 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/digbeth-wp/gcqd-digbeth-an-italian-quarter-then-internment.mp3 0:06 3 full Digbeth: An Irish Quarter, Built and Rebuilt https://qualla.com/digbeth/ Photo credit G-Man at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The Irish community has had deeper roots and more continuity. Significant Irish immigration to Birmingham began after the Great Famine of the 1840s, with most arrivals from County Roscommon, County Galway, and County Mayo. Further waves came during and after the Second World War,...

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Image: G-Man at English Wikipedia | Public domain

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/digbeth-wp/gcqd-digbeth-an-irish-quarter-built-and-rebuilt.mp3 0:06 4 full Digbeth: Railways That Stopped Short https://qualla.com/digbeth/ Photo credit Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0. Digbeth's industrial geography was shaped by Victorian railway ambition that did not always finish what it started. The Great Western Railway built a mainline viaduct through Digbeth out of Staffordshire blue brick, leading into Snow Hill station via the Snow Hill Tunnel. As Snow...

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Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK | CC BY 2.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/digbeth-wp/gcqd-digbeth-railways-that-stopped-short.mp3 0:06 5 full Digbeth: The Creative Quarter Now https://qualla.com/digbeth/ Photo credit Erebus555, CC BY-SA 3.0. Three things define modern Digbeth. The Custard Factory, redeveloped from the Bird's Custard works starting in 1992, now hosts about four hundred small businesses, mostly in tech, digital, and creative trades. The BBC announced in August 2022 that it would move its Birmingham reg...

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Image: Erebus555 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/digbeth-wp/gcqd-digbeth-the-creative-quarter-now.mp3 0:06 6 full