On Saturday, after doing a job at Birmingham’s millennial white elephant (every city must have at least one) Millennium Point I noticed the late afternoon sun was setting over a lovely blue sky and Curzon Street Station was basking it in. So I rattled off a few shots. Here’s the three that made the cut.

I’ve long been fascinated by this building since I first snapped it in 2005 on an early walk around Digbeth. It was the starting point for the first Birmingham Flickrmeet in September 2005 where I took one of my first photos with my Dad’s old Nikon F2 which I’m still really pleased with:

(The F2 has gone back to him for safekeeping and I use his old FM2 when I want to shoot 35mm film.)

For a few years the station was used by various arts organisations for ad-hoc events which meant I got access to the inside during Artsfest, the Fierce Festival and Rhubarb Rhubarb’s photography show which I have photos of. Whenever someone sees the building the immediately think “this would be excellent for…” because it seems such a waste, sitting there in the middle of nowhere like an old man abandoned by the next generation, or something.

After many ideas, some sensible, some rather daft actually, Birmingham Council, who own the building, did some sums and decided it would be cheaper to mothball the site than maintain it as a venue so it was shuttered up. No more ad-hoc arts events, no more strange theatre in the basement or exhibitions. And certainly no more fireworks on the roof.

Here’s my post breaking that story and Jo Geary’s follow up article. If you read them you’ll get an idea of the complications involved in keeping this building and the headaches for the council in having a Grade 1 listed piece of architecture in the middle of an urban wasteland.

Because that’s the nub of the issue. This isn’t just a nice looking slab of stone. It’s a very important nice looking slab on stone. As the currently slightly out of date Wikipedia article explains it was built in 1838 as the terminus of the London to Birmingham railway and was matched at the other end by a similar structure at Euston. But unlike Euston, which grew and grew, Curzon Street was quickly superseded by New St and the station closed to the public in 1854 and completely in 1893. London demolished their end in the 60s and it currently lies at the bottom of a river. Mercifully Birmingham didn’t, I guess because it wasn’t really in the way, but it hasn’t been used for it’s original purpose for over a century.

That’s a long time for a building to be looking for a use. And in the meanwhile the building itself isn’t getting any younger. While it’s not in any danger of being demolished it is in some slight danger of falling into disrepair. There’s a plant growing out of the front which is a bit of clue.

Something needs to be done, as people are so wont to say about things they have no responsibility for doing something about. This building is important, both for the city and the nation. I think the emphasis needs to shift from finding a use for a building whose intended use ceased 150 years ago and move towards preserving it as a monument. Certainly this means restoring the insides and it could even find a use as a visitor centre and museum for itself. But it needs to be seen and valued a a cultural artifact in itself and one worth saving.

In the meanwhile myself and the other photographers of Birmingham will keep feeding off it for inspiration. Our monolithic, redundant, geriatric old muse.