GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1875

Extract from Great Western Magazine Vol. 26. No.5, May 1914

The Great Western Arcade, Birmingham

The circumstances under which the Birmingham Tunnel came into being are brought to mind by a report of the death of Mr EW Simkin, formally a wholesale draper of Birmingham, to whose intervention a length of the tunnel is directly attributable. In the Birmingham and Oxford Junction (Birmingham Extension) Act, 1846, the Birmingham and Oxford Company were placed under obligation to cover in the railway by a tunnel arch for the entire length between Moor Street and Monmouth Street; and conformably, the tunnel was made and built over very considerably. It is clear, however, that the obligation was not fulfilled completely, as the covering between Temple Row and Monmouth Street was not effected until 1873, when an agreement was entered into with Mr Simkin, by which, and in conformity with the Great Western Railway Act of that year, arches were turned over the railway as shown on the sections appended, to carry the arcade, at that time adjudged one of the principal features in the architecture of the city and said to have proved one of the few profitable undertakings of the kind.

Robert Ferris

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