Page:The Grand junction railway companion to Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham; (IA grandjunctionrai00free).pdf/197

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Birmingham Guide.
185

We shall now take a hasty sketch of the Town, its Public Buildings, Offices, and Institutions. Those devoted to the relief of human sorrow and suffering, are very considerable, not only in the extent of their means but in their number. The fine arts are highly cultivated in this town, the importance of a school of design, and the cultivation of a correct taste, being well appreciated-indeed being essential to the prosecution of the extensive and elegant manufactures for which it is so deservedly celebrated.

Churches, Chapels, &c. &c.

Birmingham has 12 Churches, all of which are within the Archdeaconry of Coventry and diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, and the following places of worship for various denominations of Dissenters: Independents, 3; Baptists, 4; Methodists, 3; Scotch Church, 1; Society of Friends, 1; Catholics, 1; Unitarians, 2; Jews, 1. St. Martin's, the original parish church, is charged in K.B. £19 13s. 6½d. It has a fine spire; the other portion of it has a mean appearance. St. Phillip's is the handsomest ecclesiastical erection in the town, and being situated in an area of four acres, it can be seen to advantage. Several of the others are imposing edifices, in which the Grecian style principally obtains, but we have not here room to notice them separately.

Public Buildings and Institutions.

The Town Hall ranks the first under this head, and is a fine erection of the Corinthian order; it is