covert magazine

{............MaGAZINE.}{covert.}

{BIRMINGHAM.}{Edition..............}

Covert Magazine is split into two halves for this edition.

There is an am-bience of man made industrial areas clashing with a more nat-ural formatted area. One half is dedicated to revealing the hidden story and past of the

Longbridge In-dustrial area, the other half is engrossed to unveal the hid-den private na-ture park in Mo-seley. We hope to shine a light on forgotten ar-eas of Birming-ham and have captured these places like nev-er before.

Covert Magazine is dedicated to recognising hidden elements with-

in Birmingham. We do not focus on the main multi million pound Bull Ring or the sassy modern develop-ments happening in the town centre.

We believe a lot more interesting places exist out in the sub urban areas and in this issue we have ex-plored with the intention to inform some of these areas. We look for those diamonds in the dirt that are yet to be found and exposed in this way.

INTRODUCTION

ENJOY!

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ongbridge was once a thriving in-dustrial commu-

nity and the area was mainly dominated by a vast network of fac-tories split up into North, South, East and West Works. Ever Since founding father Sir Herbert Austin set up his Austin Motor com-

pany over 100 years ago the area has been home to many car com-panies such as Rover & MG works. However when war came about Long-bridge played a vital role in the production of war aid as request-ed by the government. Car production was partly put on hold.

West works was home to the mass production of ammunations and was a main target for the German luftwaffe as it aided the british ar-mies supply of weap-onry. In the case of heavy bombing an air raid shelter was built on site to accomodate workers if there ever was an attack.

West works is now a desolate wasteland and sits opposite the new Bournville Col-

lege (right)and is over shadowed by this mas-sive redevelopment. However hidden in the side of a steep embank-ment lies the old war time bunker (top) This war bunker has been forgotten by the modern world over time.In this exclusive re-port i have uncovered what has laid dormant for nearly 100 years and ressurected these fascinating historical and FORGOTTEN elements of Brum.

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ast works was created soley for

the war effort. The government came up with a Shadow Factory scheme (a tem-porary facto-ry) to help the production of aircraft such as Lancaster Bombers. These planes were created on the now desolate assembly line (bottom) before being hauled across the road into the Flight Shed (left).

The Flight Shed was a unique factory with a inginious ‘hon-eycomb’ struc-tured roof which supported

the weight of the roof within its apex to re-duce the use of pillars and optimise work space within the factory. The planes had the final parts assembled with-in the flight shed before be-ing hauled up a specially de-signed aero lift at the rear of the factory, the planes were then tested on the old flying ground on South Works.

Nowadays the Flight Shed is an empty en-vironment that is no longer in use full of wasted products

that have been left to disin-tergrate into all the rede-velopment of the area. This building now awaits execu-tion by demo-lition teams waiting to make way for the new Longbridge Vil-lage scheme.

Very few roof structures of this kind still exist within Europe and it truly saddens me that part of Birminghams in-dustrial heart is going to be ripped apart to make way for a few houses in-stead of being preserved.

WHAT A WASTE!

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Moseley Park is one of the hidden edens of Bir-mingham, being known as a city for nightlife and shopping, the natural element of Birmingham has been overshadowed. Having inspired J.R.R Tolkien to write ‘Lord of the Rings’ with its pure beauty and wild-life, this is one of

the most peaceful en-viroments in Birming-ham. Situated behind a Village, its an eden that is very unexpect-ed to be there, howev-er, this area is lucky to be there, after be-ing threatened of build-ing works in 1896, atfer Sailsbury Road, Moseley Village, was cut through to Edgbaston.

PRIVATE PARK

This made people want to build on this land, but a group of buisnessmen came to save the day, when they opted to buy and preserve this land on the condition that it

would only be used as a quiet, unspolied private park forever. they fi-nalised this in Septem-ber 1888. The park has been kept by volunteers ever since.

MOSELEY

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Nature at its best includes

animals. With-out animals we wouldnt have na-ture. It shows the true beauty of habitats and how the world-would be without materialistic things, build-ings structures and man made things. Su-prising there

are over sixty wildlife ani-mals roaming in just this park alone. Peace-fully floating across the lake you will find swans,coots, mallard ducks and more. In the ground life you will come across fox’s, herons, tawny owls, kes-tels and robins.

Harmless and shy these animals are part of the parks beauty and natural format. The swans gleam across the lake like peace-ful angels and gives the park a peaceful feel-ings, like it was intended to in 1896.....

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{ExploRinG}

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EXPLORING HIDDEN EDENS

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MOSELEY PRIVATE PARK

EXPLORING HIDDEN EDENS

MOSELEY PRIVATE PARK

Before 1896 this unique

gateway was used as an un-dergound shel-ter, as before the park was made this en-viroment would of been a sim-ple field. This historic gate entrance has been pre-served for natural his-tory and peo-ple who roam in the peace-ful park. This is kept in perfect con-dition due to the group of buisness-men who funded the private park in 1896, it was their decision that this very park would stay

preserved for decades to come. This gate is situ-ated in the middle of the whole park, one its own, surrounded by greenary. It has been un-touched due to the care and attention that many vol-unteers have made sure that this gate-way stays as it always has been. It is surrounded by Ivy and dif-ferent shrub-bery, giving the gate a natural sur-rounding it. From afar this gate looks like the en-trance to a

secret garden, however the entire park is really a se-cret garden. A walk through it would be a walk of ideas and inspira-tion, many people use this park to get away from loud nois-es, and just stand, walk or gaze at the beauty that Birmingham re-ally has. It may be hidden but it’s not very hard to visit........

“A SENTIMENT OF HISTORY”

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Ea s t Works

has many v i s i -ble ele-ments from the road-side, yet tucked away u n d e r n e a t h the road lies some very unique facto-ries which can-not be seen from most places.These Factories were created from during the war in the time of German bombings, and they created a safe en-vironment in which

people could work during the blackout periods. These un-derground factories (basically long wide tunnels) have laid dormant ever since the end of the war and have served no real purpose since, apart from storage areas. Now the whole site is undergoing huge de-velopment and the tunnels are sealed and at this moment in time. They have no future apart from be-ing destroyed along with the other parts of the factory.Access is limited yet i have managed

to gain entrance to parts of these tun-nels for this re-port. Along with my camera i have entered a hidden side of Bir-mingham in which i don’t think many peo-ple are aware of.

This exclusive re-port was dedicated to ressurecting these forgotten relics and bringing back to life a part of Brum which should never have been killed in the first place.

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{ UpoN ENteRiNg the uNkNoWN }

{tHe fActORY}{fOr tHe Rest }

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{{We}{cReAtEd}

{Of The World}

{The Rest Of tHe}{World JusT RefiNed}

{...The IdeA...}

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{{We}{cReAtEd}

{Of The World}

{The Rest Of tHe}{World JusT RefiNed}

{...The IdeA...}30

COVERT MAGAZINE

Created By

Danielle Donovan

Tom Kavanagh

Annie Thomson

covert magazine

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