Paradise, Birmingham

Paradise, formerly named Paradise Circus, is the name given to an area of approximately 7 hectares in Birmingham city centre between Chamberlain and Centenary Squares. The area has been part of the civic centre of Birmingham, England since the 19th century when it contained buildings such as the Town Hall, Mason Science College, Birmingham and Midland Institute buildings and Central Library. The site was redeveloped from 1960 to 1975 into the present Paradise Circus based within a roundabout on the Inner Ring Road system containing a new Central Library and School of Music. From 2015 Argent Group will redevelop the area into new mixed use buildings and public squares.

Although there are no maps dating from the period to confirm this, a manorial survey of 1553 (reproduced as the conjectural 1857 Bickey and Hill map) records that the site of the present Paradise Circus is on the western boundary of the town. The field name ‘Paradise Close’ is shown on the map where the current site derives its name. The origin of the name ‘Paradise’ could be a possible satisfaction with the quality of land or a medieval pleasure garden among other possibilities. As a result of this the street at the southern end of the site was named Paradise Street when the street was laid out in the late 18th century. When the road layout was transformed into a gyratory roundabout in the 1960s the site became known as Paradise Circus. Areas within the site were named Paradise Place and the shopping arcade created under Central Library in the early 1990s was named Paradise Forum. In 2014 it was announced that the new development would be named as simply ‘Paradise’ to reflect the fact that the 'circus' element would disappear when Paradise Circus Queensway next to the Town Hall was pedestrianised.

The early settlement of Birmingham was focused on the parish church of St Martin in the Bull Ring, approximately 800m east of the present Paradise Circus. As the medieval settlement grew in the 16th and 17th centuries the area was on the western boundary of the town and remained as fields.

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