Bingley Hall

Bingley Hall in Birmingham was the first purpose-built exhibition hall in Great Britain. It was built in 1850 and burned down in 1984. The International Convention Centre now stands on the site.

The precursor of Bingley Hall was an "Exhibition of the Manufactures of Birmingham and the Midland Counties" in a temporary wooden hall built in the grounds of, and attached to, Bingley House on Broad Street in central Birmingham (which once belonged to banker Charles Lloyd and was visited by Samuel Taylor Coleridge) and opened on 3 September 1849 for visitors to the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival. This exhibition was visited by Charles Darwin, and also on 12 November by Prince Albert and may have contributed to his ideas for the Great Exhibition of 1851 at the Crystal Palace.

Bingley House was built about 1760 as Byngas Hall and was the home of James Farmer, whose daughter married Charles Lloyd. The house and its land were bought by a railway company in order to build the railway tunnel (New Street North Tunnel) for the Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Stour Valley Railway. The house was demolished.

In December 1849, the first Birmingham annual cattle show and poultry show were held in a temporary hall on the corner of Lower Essex Street and Kent Street, but the following year the 2nd shows were held in the new Bingley Hall.

Bingley Hall was built by Messrs Branson and Gwyther (architect J. A. Chatwin), for £6,000 in six weeks in 1850, using steel columns surplus to the construction of Euston railway station. It was built in the Roman Doric style using red and blue bricks (the Staffordshire blue bricks being diverted from building the Oxford Street viaduct). Covering one and a quarter acres internally, it measured 224 feet (68 m) by 221 feet (67 m), used 11,700 feet (3,600 m) of 21-inch (530 mm) glass, and had ten entrance doors.

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