History
Kings Heath came into being as a village in the 18th century with the improvements to the Alcester to Birmingham road acting as a catalyst for new houses and farms. Prior to this the area was largely uninhabited wasteland run by the Royal Borough of Kings Norton.
The streets running off High Street are dominated by pre-1919 terraced, owner occupied housing. Due to the desirability of the area and the quality of local schools Kings Heath is steadily becoming gentrified, with houses becoming increasingly unaffordable for local people.
A number of independent shops have taken advantage of relatively cheaper rents in the side roads off High Street and recently there has been an influx of boutiques and even the start of an (organic) cafe culture. In 2008 the businesses agreed to a Business Improvement District, which top-slices a proportion of their local business taxes to go directly into improvements and promotion of the area.
The locals still refer to Kings Heath as a 'village' even though it has been part of Birmingham for over a century. Its centre at the Vicarage Road junction has now been developed to form an attractive public square which is used as a venue for the monthly farmers' market and other events.
On 28 July 2005, Kings Heath was hit by a major (by European standards) tornado which damaged several shops on High Street and All Saints' Church. The tornado then went on to damage many houses in Balsall Heath. There were no fatalities.
High Street has also suffered from flash floods on occasions, sometimes up to a foot of water in depth, although recently installed underground reservoirs at the junction of Station Road and High Street aim to combat this problem.
Read more about this topic: Kings Heath
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)