Qualla: Nechells https://qualla.com/nechells 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/nechells-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Nechells https://qualla.com/nechells Nechells: Introduction https://qualla.com/nechells/ Photo credit Stephen Richards, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 7 July 2016, a sixteen-foot concrete wall collapsed onto five workers at the Hawkeswood Metal Recycling plant on Trevor Street. Almamo Jammeh, Ousman Diaby, Bangally Dikoureh, Salibo Sillah, and Muhamdou Jagana died beneath the rubble. All five were Gambian men who had built lives in Birmingham. Six years later, in a Birmingham Crown Court trial, two directors of the firm that ran the plant were convicted of health and safety offences, and in 2023 each was sentenced to nine months in prison. Their names rarely appear in tourist guides to Nechells. The wall did not appear there either. Five men died, and the ward where it happened has been quietly absorbing such losses for two centuries.

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Image: Stephen Richards | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/nechells-wp/gcqd-nechells-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Nechells: Land Added by Draining a Marsh https://qualla.com/nechells/ Photo credit User:Bluffalobrill, CC BY-SA 3.0. The name first appears in 1180 as Echeles, then Le Echeles in 1290 and Le Necheles in 1322. The philologist Eilert Ekwall traced it back to an Old English phrase meaning land added to a village or estate, with a possible refinement of land reclaimed by draining a marsh. Eight hun...

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Image: User:Bluffalobrill | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/nechells-wp/gcqd-nechells-land-added-by-draining-a-marsh.mp3 0:06 2 full Nechells: The Densely Populated Century https://qualla.com/nechells/ Photo credit User:Bluffalobrill, Public domain. Mass immigration from Ireland filled the new terraces. By 1868, a directory described Nechells as a populous suburb with extensive workshops for building railway carriages and a lunatic asylum. The Grand Junction Railway had cut through in 1837 to reach its temporary Birmingham t...

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Image: User:Bluffalobrill | Public domain

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/nechells-wp/gcqd-nechells-the-densely-populated-century.mp3 0:06 3 full Nechells: Cars, Coke, and a Battle https://qualla.com/nechells/ Photo credit Bluffalobrill, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1893, a twenty-three-year-old engineer named Frederick William Lanchester walked out of the Forward Gas Engine Company's works near Bloomsbury Street and built the first all-British four-wheel petrol car. A small monument in Bloomsbury Village Green now commemorates the achiev...

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Image: Bluffalobrill | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/nechells-wp/gcqd-nechells-cars-coke-and-a-battle.mp3 0:06 4 full Nechells: Trams to Trolleybuses to a New Line https://qualla.com/nechells/ Photo credit Robin Stott, CC BY-SA 2.0. Bus service to Nechells began in the 1850s. Osborne's railway timetable for January 1858 lists an omnibus from the Town Hall to Nechells Green and Bloomsbury, eight return journeys a day at fourpence a fare, operated by Lamyman and Monk. The tram came next, then in 1922 something...

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Image: Robin Stott | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/nechells-wp/gcqd-nechells-trams-to-trolleybuses-to-a-new-line.mp3 0:06 5 full Nechells: Star City and the People Who Stayed https://qualla.com/nechells/ Photo credit Robin Stott, CC BY-SA 2.0. On land where two coal-fired power stations once stood, both now demolished, sits Star City. A vast entertainment complex with a thirty-screen Vue cinema, a 22-lane bowling alley, a casino, a hotel, and the Wing Yip headquarters of Britain's largest Chinese food wholesaler. Neche...

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Image: Robin Stott | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/d/nechells-wp/gcqd-nechells-star-city-and-the-people-who-stayed.mp3 0:06 6 full