page_title: Sparkhill
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Sparkhill / History
caption_attribution_description: English: St John&#39;s Church, Sparkhill, CTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"&gt; &lt;html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" id="geograph"&gt; &lt;head&gt; &lt;title&gt;St John&#39;s Church, Sparkhill:: OS grid SP0984&#160;:: Geograph Britain and Ireland - photograph every grid square!&lt;/title&gt; &lt;meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /&gt; &lt;meta name="description" content="Grade II listed . http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-217556-church-of-st-john-the-evangelist-includi" /&gt; &lt;meta name="ICBM" content="52.45414823717, -1.865898071853"/&gt;	&lt;meta name="DC.title" content="Geograph:: St John&#39;s Church, Sparkhill:: OS grid SP0984"/&gt; &lt;link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" title="Monitor" href="http://s1.geograph.org.uk/templates/basic/css/basic.v7747.css" media="screen" /&gt; &lt;link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="http://s1.geograph.org.uk/favicon.ico"/&gt; &lt;link rel="alternate" type="application/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml" href="/photo/2646784.kml"/&gt; &lt;link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" title="Geograph Britain and Ireland search" href="/stuff/osd.xml" /&gt; &lt;script type="text/javascript" src="http://s1.geograph.org.uk/js/geograph.v7635.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt; &lt;/head&gt; &lt;body&gt; &lt;a title="Geograph home page" href="/"&gt;Geograph - photograph every grid square&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a title="Grid Reference SP0984&#160;:: 49 images" href="/gridref/SP0984"&gt;SP0984&lt;/a&gt;&#160;: St John&#39;s Church, Sparkhill near to Moseley, Birmingham, Great Britain.
context_page_description: Sparkhill is an inner-city area of Birmingham, England, situated between Springfield, Hall Green and Sparkbrook.
context_section_description: Historically part of Worcestershire, Sparkhill once existed as a rural area with its main industry being agriculture until the 1880s. In the Middle Ages, the Sparke family farmed in the area.
  Development of the area began in the 1890s as a result of the Industrial Revolution which was causing Birmingham to expand. In the 1850s, a small area of land was bought by a building society and sold to separate developers who built houses for the working class. People who owned a property were entitled to vote and a campaigner for the working class vote was Joseph Sturge, a Birmingham manufacturer. As a result of his campaigning, a newly created street in the area was named after him. The architecture of the houses was varied due to the different developers. A centre began to develop for the area with its own pub, The Cherry Arbour.
  In the late 1860s, developments appeared all over Sparkhill with the creation of long, straight streets forming a uniform pattern. The new houses were terraced with their own back garden, coal shed and lavatory. For the wealthy middle class, larger houses were built in a plot bounded by Stoney Lane, Alfred Road and Durham Road.
  Sparkhill was removed from the possession of Yardley and became an area of Birmingham in 1911 as part of the Greater Birmingham Act. Yardley also became a suburb of Birmingham in the same year. The former council house for Yardley District Council (built 1898–1902, architect Arthur Harrison) was converted into Sparkhill Library (SP09238366) and opened on 19 January 1923. It is one of the earliest examples of double-glazed windows in a public building. Other buildings built for the district were a police station, magistrate's court and a fire station, which were all located next to the council house. St John's Church is the local Anglican Parish Church and the home of the charity Narthex Sparkhill. Designed by the famous Birmingham Architects Martin and Chamberlain, the church was built in 1888. A reredos in memory of Louisa Ryland was erected in the church after her death.
  As a result of the nearby BSA factory being targeted, the area suffered from bombing in World War II, resulting in the loss of some houses, and their 1940s replacement (e.g. the houses at 180–190 Osborne Road). A memorial to those from the BSA works who died during the Second World War can be found in St John's Church.
  Another old landmark in Sparkhill is the Mermaid Inn, which has been the site of a pub since the 17th century. The building was converted into a Balti restaurant in the late 20th century; however, it was severely damaged by numerous fires in the 2000s decade. The building's art deco exterior decoration is by local sculptor William Bloye.
  Other pubs, the Bear and The Antelope, both designed by Holland W. Hobbiss, have sculpted pub signs by William Bloye. The Antelope was, in 2010, converted into a Pakistani restaurant known as "Hajees Spice".
caption: St John's Church
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