St Thomas' Peace Garden

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St Thomas' Peace Garden
Peace Gardens
Coat of arms of Birmingham.svg
Park in Birmingham
St Thomas' Peace Garden
Partial view of the garden
Basic data
place Birmingham
District Holloway Head
Created 20th century
Surrounding streets Bath Row
Buildings St Thomas' Church (ruin)
use
User groups Foot traffic

St Thomas' Peace Garden (also Peace Gardens ) is a small park in Birmingham that is on the site of a church that was destroyed in World War II. It is intended to admonish peace and remind everyone who perished in armed conflict.

The Church of St. Thomas

Ruins of St. Thomas Church (2018)

In 1818 the UK Parliament approved £ 1 million for the construction of new Anglican church buildings. One of them was to be built on Bath Row in Birmingham. The architects Thomas Rickman and Henry Hutchinson, who already had experience with numerous church buildings, were ultimately awarded the contract .

While the two were previously mainly considered to be representatives of neo-Gothic , their design for the St. Thomas Church envisaged a building in the Greek Revival style with a single large tower above the west portal and next to it a quarter-circle Ionic portico .

The foundation stone was laid on October 2, 1826. After three years of construction, the church was consecrated on October 22, 1829. It had 1225 seats. The cost of construction was £ 14,222.

During a bombing raid on Birmingham by the German Air Force , the church was hit directly on the evening of December 11, 1940. Only the western part with the church tower and the porticos remained. The church was not rebuilt. The remains have been under monument protection since 1982 (classification Grade II ).

Peace Gardens

In 1953 the area was converted into a park on the occasion of the coronation of Elizabeth II . While existing grave stones have been removed yet and the dead to another cemetery reburied .

Next to the Hall of Memory there has been a colonnade on Broad Street designed by SN Cooke and WN Twist since 1925 with memorial plaques for various people and groups of people, primarily those related to the First World War . When Centenary Square was to be laid out at the Hall of Memory in 1989 , this First World War Memorial Colonnade was moved to the northern part of the park at St. Thomas Church .

The area was converted into a peace park. In addition to the horticultural redesign of the green area, plaques with messages of peace from different countries and from different religious groups were installed in the colonnade and porticos of the destroyed church.

The metal fence and gates surrounding the park were designed by the Indian-born artist Anuradha Patel.

The Peace Gardens were officially opened on December 2, 1992 by then Bishop of Birmingham Mark Santer .

Even after the opening, the garden's equipment was repeatedly supplemented by additional memorial plaques or the planting of memorial trees.

A multi-religious peace service has been held in the Peace Gardens every September since 2011 .

G8 summit 1998

As part of the G8 summit , which took place in Birmingham from May 15 to 17, 1998, the eight participating heads of state or government each planted a tree in the Peace Gardens to represent their respective country of origin:

country Head of State or Government Tree species
United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair English oak ( Quercus robur )
FranceFrance France President Jacques Chirac Common beech ( Fagus sylvatica )
CanadaCanada Canada Prime Minister Jean Chrétien Red maple ( Acer rubrum )
United StatesUnited States United States of America President Bill Clinton Coast redwood ( Sequoia sempervirens )
JapanJapan Japan Prime Minister Ryūtarō Hashimoto Japanese cherry ( Prunus serrulata ) "Mount Fuji"
GermanyGermany Federal Republic of Germany Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl Imperial linden ( Tilia × europaea 'pallida' )
ItalyItaly Italy Prime Minister Romano Prodi Italian alder ( Alnus cordata )
RussiaRussia Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin White birch ( Betula pendula )

gallery

  • First World War Memorial Colonnade

  • First World War Memorial Colonnade

  • Eastern entrance gate to the park

  • Detail of the metal fence by Anuradha Patel

  • Stele in the center of the garden

  • British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association plaque

Web links

Commons : St. Thomas' Peace Garden  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Coordinates: 52 ° 28 ′ 24.2 "  N , 1 ° 54 ′ 21.6"  W.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ST. THOMAS, Birmingham (Bath Row, Holloway Head) in: A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 7, the City of Birmingham , Victoria County History, London, 1964 (digitized version on British History Online )
  2. ↑ George Yates: An Historical and Descriptive Sketch of Birmingham , Beilby, Knott, & Beilby, Birmingham 1830, p. 121 ff.
  3. ^ William Hutton: History of Birmingham , 6th Edition, Birmingham 1835, pp. 270 ff.
  4. ↑ REMAINS OF THE CHURCH OF ST THOMAS on historicengland.org.uk
  5. ↑ ST. THOMAS'S PEACE GARDEN at http://www.anuradhapatel.com
  6. ^ Matt Lloyd, Peace prayers help bring different faiths together , www.birminghammail.co.uk, September 14, 2013
  7. ↑ Birmingham Faith Leaders Group host Annual Interfaith Service for Peace at the St Thomas Peace Garden , Nishkam Media Center, September 18, 2014
  8. ↑ Birmingham Annual Peace Service on the Diocese of Birmingham website of the Church of England , September 12, 2018
  9. ↑ Birmingham Peace Park on iwm.org.uk