Broad Street, Birmingham

Broad Street is a major thoroughfare and popular nightspot in Birmingham City Centre, United Kingdom. Traditionally, Broad Street was considered to be outside Birmingham City Centre, but as the city centre expanded with the removal of the Inner Ring Road, Broad Street has been incorporated into the new Westside district of the city centre due to its position within the A4540 road.

In the 1750s, Broad Street was an unnamed country path that ran across Easy Hill from Bewdley Street (now Victoria Square) and Swinford Street (now the top end of New Street) to Five Ways and on to Stourbridge and Bewdley.

However, in the following years, Easy Hill began to develop with the construction of a house by John Baskerville, a local printer. This led to the widening of the street which passed in front of his house. The path was soon removed and an established street was added that ran to the border of Edgbaston and, as a result of its widening, it was named Broad Street.

St Martin's Church owned land on the southern end of Broad Street, at what is now Five Ways, and began to develop the land in 1773 after the passing of an Act of Parliament. The 22-acre (8.9 ha) site was developed into an estate known as the 'Six Closes' or the 'Islington Estate' (named after Islington Row which bounded the south of the site). The Crown Inn was built in 1781, and survives in modified form. By 1795, several streets had been created according to Pye's map. One of the streets that remain from the development is Tennant Street, named after William Tennant who had the advowson of St Martin's Church. Development slowed as a result of overseas wars however rapidly increased after the Battle of Waterloo.

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