Gosta Green is an area in the city of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It lies at the edge of the city centre, northeast of

Birmingham New Street station Birmingham New Street is the largest and busiest of the three main railway stations in Birmingham city centre, England, and a central hub of the British railway system. It is a major destination for Avanti West Coast services from , and vi ...

University

Gosta Green is the home of the

Aston University Aston University (abbreviated as ''Aston''. for post-nominals) is a public research university situated in the city centre of Birmingham, England. Aston began as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School in 1895, evolving into the UK's first c ...

campus. The campus is also adjacent to the

Aston Science Park Birmingham Science Park Aston, formerly known as Aston Science Park, is a science park located in Birmingham City Centre, United Kingdom. It is located adjacent to Aston University and the Eastside area. Description Birmingham Science Park ...

Pubs

There are two pubs – the "Gosta Green" on Great Lister Street, and "The Sacks of Potatoes" near Aston Street. The "Gosta Green" pub was originally called the "Pot of Beer". During the 1980s and early 1990s, it was a venue for

indie music Independent music (also commonly known as indie music or simply indie) is music that is produced independently from commercial record labels or their subsidiaries, a process that may include an autonomous, DIY ethic, do-it-yourself approach to r ...

. Bands who performed at the pub include

Pop Will Eat Itself Pop Will Eat Itself are an English alternative rock band formed in 1986 in Stourbridge in the West Midlands of England with members from Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country. Initially known as a grebo act, they changed style to incorpor ...

and Blur. It later became a Scream pub; part of the Firkin chain, known as the "Faculty and Firkin" in the late 1990s. The Pub has recently been changed (2015) from being a Scream pub to the Common Room brand owned by Stonegate. It is now called the 'Gosta Green'.

History

Historically Gosta Green ('Gosty Green') was part of the parish of

Aston Aston is an area of inner Birmingham, England. Located immediately to the north-east of Central Birmingham, Aston constitutes a ward within the metropolitan authority. It is approximately 1.5 miles from Birmingham City Centre. History Aston wa ...

. Probably named from its holding by William de Gorsty in the early 14th century. It was known as Gostie Green by the mid 18th century, the name being a corruption of Gorsty to

gorse ''Ulex'' (commonly known as gorse, furze, or whin) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. The genus comprises about 20 species of thorny evergreen shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae. The species are n ...

(i.e. gorse bushes, locally called 'goss', which were common nearby). The Green was actually two greens by the mid 18th century; Lower Gorsty Green being the larger, encircled by a road. It was the location of Bishop Ryder Memorial Church from 1838 to 1960.

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

preacher

John Wesley John Wesley (; 2 March 1791) was an English people, English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The soci ...

was roughly handled while preaching on Gosta Green. In 1840, the

Chartists Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, w ...

Lovett and Collins, directly on their release from prison, gave speeches to 30,000 people on Gosta Green. The Gosta Green

Gun Quarter The Gun Quarter is a district of the city of Birmingham, England, which was for many years a centre of the world's gun-manufacturing industry, specialising in the production of military firearms and sporting guns. It is an industrial area to the ...

was visited by

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

in 1858, when it was described as: "the centre of the locality in which the gun-trade carried on", and the local gun-makers guild spent around £6,000 on street decorations. During the 19th century, until the late 1880s, Gosta Green was the location of a regular market. The surrounding streets were filled with

back-to-back houses Back-to-backs are a form of terraced houses in the United Kingdom, built from the late 18th century through to the early 20th century in various guises. Many thousands of these dwellings were built during the Industrial Revolution for the rapidly ...

, small workshops, and a dozen

pubs A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

. Only a few pubs now remain to remind visitors of its Victorian past. Eccles Motor Transport Ltd., a pioneer in the production of automobile pulled caravans, established its Gosta Green factory in 1919. Gosta Green's

Birmingham Arts Lab The Birmingham Arts Laboratory or Arts Lab was an experimental arts centre and artist collective based in Birmingham, England from 1968 to 1982 – an "arts and performance space dedicated to radical research into art and creativity". Loosely org ...

was formerly the Centre for the Arts as which it had been an important centre for theatre and music in the late 1970s having been established for

by Theatre Organiser Nick Arnold, Music Organiser Tony Pither and Technical Manager Cliff Dix during that decade in the former Delica Cinema (later the BBC Midland television studios before the opening of

Pebble Mill Pebble Mill Studios was the BBC's television studio complex located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, United Kingdom, which served as the headquarters for BBC Birmingham from 1971 until 2004. The nine-acre site was opened by Princess Anne on ...

in 1971). Following the Lab take over the building became The Triangle Cinema, then the frontage became a

Waterstones Waterstones, formerly Waterstone's, is a British book retailer that operates 311 shops, mainly in the United Kingdom and also other nearby countries. As of February 2014, it employs around 3,500 staff in the UK and Europe. An average-sized Wa ...

bookshop. The building has subsequently become the home of the European Bio-Energy Research Institute (EBRI), part of Aston University.

References

External links

A panorama of Gosta Green in 2008
{{Areas of Birmingham Areas of Birmingham, West Midlands