Grove Park is a public park in

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 ...

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, created in 1963 and managed by

Birmingham City Council Birmingham City Council is the local government body responsible for the governance of the City of Birmingham in England, which has been a metropolitan district since 1974. It is the most populated local council area in the United Kingdom (e ...

. It lies on the Westerly side of Harborne Park Road, which forms part of the

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History

The park was historically the grounds of The Grove, an 18th-century

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house. One of Birmingham's first MPs, Thomas Attwood, lived at The Grove between 1823 and 1846. Attwood is immortalised in a bronze statue which is sat on the steps of

Chamberlain Square Chamberlain Square or Chamberlain Place is a public square in central Birmingham, England, named after statesman and notable mayor of Birmingham, Joseph Chamberlain. The Victorian square was drastically remodelled in the 1970s, with most of the V ...

The house was rebuilt in 1877–78, by

John Henry Chamberlain John Henry Chamberlain (21 June 1831 – 22 October 1883), generally known professionally as J. H. Chamberlain, was a British nineteenth-century architect based in Birmingham. Working predominantly in the Victorian Gothic style, he was one of ...

for

William Kenrick William Kenrick may refer to: *William Kenrick (Member of Barebone's Parliament), MP for Kent (UK Parliament constituency) *William Kenrick (writer) (1725–1779), English novelist, playwright and satirist *William Kenrick (nurseryman) (1795&nda ...

, a prominent Birmingham businessman and MP for Birmingham North. Kenrick died at The Grove, aged 88 in 1919. The house and grounds were bequeathed to Birmingham City Council, the house was demolished in 1963, after which the grounds became a public space. A panelled

anteroom A vestibule (also anteroom, antechamber, or foyer) is a small room leading into a larger space such as a lobby, entrance hall or passage, for the purpose of waiting, withholding the larger space view, reducing heat loss, providing storage space ...

of the drawing room at The Grove was saved from destruction and acquired by the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

in London. The room was used to display Kendrick's collection of blue and white ceramics.

References

{{Birmingham parks Parks and open spaces in Birmingham, West Midlands Harborne