The Old Crown, Birmingham

The Old Crown a pub in Deritend, is the oldest extant secular building in Birmingham, England. It is Grade II* listed, and claims to date back to c. 1368, retaining its "black and white" timber frame, although almost all of the present building dates from the early 16th century.

History

It is believed the building was constructed between 1450 and 1500 with some evidence dating to 1492 (the same year the Saracen's Head in nearby Kings Norton was completed). Leland noted the building, upon entering Birmingham, in 1538 as a "mansion house of tymber". It is thought to have been originally built as the Guildhall and School of St. John, Deritend. The building was purchased in 1589, by "John Dyckson, alias Bayleys", who, in the 1580s, had been buying a number of properties and lands in "the street called Deritend" and in Bordesley. Described as a tenement and garden, running alongside Heath Mill Lane, the building remained in the Dixon alias Baylis (later Dixon) family for the next hundred years.

Birmingham

Birmingham (ⁱ/ˈbɜːrmɪŋəm/) is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. It is the largest and most populous British city outside London with 1,101,360 residents (2014 est.), and its population increase of 88,400 residents between the 2001 and 2011 censuses was greater than that of any other British local authority. The city lies within the West Midlands Built-up Area, the third most populous built-up area in the United Kingdom with 2,440,986 residents (2011 census), and its metropolitan area is the United Kingdom's second most populous with 3,701,107 residents (2012 est.) and is also the 9th largest metropolitan area in Europe.

Birmingham (Live with Orchestra & Choir)

Birmingham (Live with Orchestra & Choir) is a 2013 live album by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, featuring the Orchestra of the Swan and their Chamber Choir Orchestra Conductor Andrew Powell, who was the man who did the string arrangements on the original studio albums. The album, a Comeuppance production, was released by Absolute via Universal. A DVD version of the performance was also released at the same time.

Background

The album was recorded and filmed live at the Birmingham Symphony Hall, England on 24 November 2012. The band, with the orchestra and chamber choir, made up about 50 performers together, and performed the band's first two albums The Human Menagerie and The Psychomodo in their entirety - with some of the songs entirely new to the stage. The sold-out show was a one off performance of the two albums, and also included Spandau Ballet's Steve Norman on saxophone and percussion. Aside from the two albums performed, the band also played three additional tracks on the night; "Judy Teen" (the band's UK Top 5 hit single from 1974), "Stranger Comes to Town" (the title track from Harley's 2010 album) and "Black or White" (from the 1976 album Timeless Flight. Harley commented "It's been a long time coming - something like 39 years. Now we're here, at last, with an orchestra and a choir and a big rock band, to play those first two albums pretty well the way they appeared on the original vinyl. Maybe some things should never change, in spite of progress. Welcome, my old friends."

Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham (/ˈbɜːrmɪŋhæm/ BUR-ming-ham) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. The city's population was 212,237 according to the 2010 United States Census. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of about 1,128,047 according to the 2010 Census, which is approximately one quarter of Alabama's population.

Birmingham was founded in 1871, during the post-Civil War Reconstruction period, through the merger of three pre-existing farm towns, notably, former Elyton. It grew from there, annexing many more of its smaller neighbors, into an industrial and railroad transportation center with a focus on mining, the iron and steel industry, and railroading. Birmingham was named for Birmingham, England, UK; one of that nation's major industrial cities. Most of the original settlers who founded Birmingham were of English ancestry. In one writer's view, the city was planned as a place where cheap, non-unionized, and African-American labor from rural Alabama could be employed in the city's steel mills and blast furnaces, giving it a competitive advantage over industrial cities in the Midwest and Northeast.