Chapter V.—1831-1841.
§ 1.Appearance of the Town.
The great changes in the appearance of the town during this decade were caused both by destruction and construction. Houses were taken down, streets widened, and our two noblest public buildings, the Town Hall and Free Grammar School, were erected. We do not meet with advertisements of houses to let similar to those of the preceding decades. The garden-like character of the town was rapidly changing. Land was increasing in value to such an extent that houses were more remunerative than gardens-and it is in the nature of money to ignore the beautiful, and look only to returns; and so the work of "progress" goes on, and old Birmingham becomes metamorphosed into modern Birmingham.
The following is a description of Mr. Barry's design for the Town Hall, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1832. The writer says:—
It is not of a description to strike at first view, except as being an admirably executed drawing, it seeming to consist of little more than an hexastyle portico of a very plain character; when we come, however, to examine it, we discover it to be replete with beauties, and to afford evidence of study, of original thought, and more than ordinary feeling. The order is a Doric, or rather what is usually denominated Tuscan, the columns having bases and unfluted shafts, and the frieze being without triglyphs; still Tuscan would very ill designate the general character, which is treated more in the spirit of the Grecian Doric than any other style. The columns are raised on a basement or stylobate, pierced only by three doors of narrow proportions, and with exceedingly deep plain lintels and architraves. These doors correspond with the centre and two extreme intercolumns of the portico above; so that the distance of solid unbroken wall between them is very considerable, and conveys the idea of very great strength. Still this arrangement would have been attended with a disagreeable appearance of weakness, as the lateral doors would have been too near the angles, had not the architect most felicitously overcome this inconvenience by extending the basement at each end beyond the portico itself, by the addition of a very bold pedestal carried up as high as the bases of the columns.
