Quinton, Birmingham

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For other uses, see Quinton.

Quinton is a suburb on the western edge of Birmingham, England. It is a Birmingham City Council ward within the Edgbaston formal district, and forms a part of the Birmingham Edgbaston parliamentary constituency.

The area is served by Quinton Library.

1 Geography of the area
2 History
3 Population and housing
4 Politics
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Geography of the area

Quinton borders the Birmingham suburbs of Harborne and Bartley Green and the Black Country area of Warley, and is separated by the M5 motorway from the Black Country town of Halesowen. It covers an area of 4.8 sq km; its population was recorded in the 2001 UK census as 19,798, though its boundaries have since expanded slightly. The eastern parts of it were formerly known as Ridgeacre, with Quinton or "The Quinton" being the area now around the church.

The Old Quinton area in the west of Quinton contains the highest point in Birmingham, and the top of the spire of the (Church of England) Christ Church is the highest point of any building in Birmingham. It is rumoured locally that the next highest point due easterly lies in the Ural mountains. The escarpment a little to the west also forms part of the national watershed.

The largest open space is Woodgate Valley Country Park, through which the Bourne Brook flows, dividing Quinton from Bartley Green.

[edit] History

Before the Church was built, it was part of the ancient parish of Halesowen and was largely owned in medieval times by the wealthy abbey at Lapal near Halesowen. The parish was generally known as Ridgacre until 1901, and formed, with the most of rest of Halesowen parish, a detached part of Shropshire until 1844^[1]. The area had developed along the Kidderminster and Birmingham Road which had been turnpiked.

In the 1840s, it was mentioned, then called The Quinton, that there were two small coal mines in the area and that the inhabitants were employed in nail manufacturing. Christ Church was constructed in 1840 at a cost of £2,500^[2].

Though this area (including the Christ Church and its associated primary school) dates back to the Victorian era, and Quinton was formally removed from Worcestershire and incorporated into the county borough of Birmingham, in Warwickshire, on November 9, 1909, it remained in character a village rather than a suburb until the large-scale housing development of the 1930s. Factory developments were not planned for the area as a result of objections by residents of Edgbaston to the possibility of fumes being blown over to their area via the wind.

The expanded Quinton of that time was fictionalised as "Tilton" by Francis Brett Young in his novel Mr & Mrs Pennington.

Quinton became, with the rest of Birmingham, part of the metropolitan county of the West Midlands on April 1, 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972.

[edit] Population and housing

The 2001 Population Census recorded that 22,858 people were living in Quinton. 14.5% (3,301) of the ward's population consisted of ethnic minorities compared with 29.6% for Birmingham.

Much of Quinton's housing consists of medium-sized semi-detached houses from this period. There is a concentration of low-rise council housing on the Woodgate Valley estate, and higher-rise blocks on the Welsh House Farm estate, though this was designated until 2004 as part of Harborne. The area is almost entirely residential, though there are typical small local service businesses and an office park has recently been developed on the Quinton Meadows site adjacent to the motorway.

[edit] Politics

Quinton ward is currently represented by one Labour and two Conservative councillors on Birmingham City Council; Reverend Richard Bashford (Labour), Len Clark (Conservative) and Jane James (Conservative).

The ward adopted a Ward Support Officer, with the title currently being held by Ken Brown.