The Town Hall is a concert hall and popular venue for events opened in 1834 at Victoria Square. It was built by Joseph Hansom (1803-82), architect and inventor of the hansom cab (with many famous buildings to his credit, including Arundel Cathedral), and Edward Welch (1806-68), inspiration coming from the Temple of Castor and Pollux in the forum at Rome.
The Town Hall is made with brick dug up from the earth of Selly Oak with the whole structure faced with Anglesey Marble. In 1846 Mendelssohn’s Elijah was first performed there and seven years later, over three nights at Christmastime, Dickens gave his first public readings there, addressing large and excited audiences with ‘A Christmas Carol’, especially.
More recently the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd have performed here. The hall was closed for restoration in 1996, and reopened for concerts in 2007 and then officially by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall in 2008.
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