Solihull: Architecture tour
Solihull: Architecture tour
Saturday 27 June 2026
Start time/place: 10:30am/outside of Vita Coffee, Mell Square, B91 3AY
Finish time/place: 4pm/Our Lady of the Wayside, Stratford Road, B90 4AY
A small market town for much of its history, post-war Solihull grew rapidly to become one of the most important towns in the West Midlands conurbation. Home to Lucas Industries’ R&D division, Land Rover, Birmingham Airport, a 1960s shopping precinct and a 1990s shopping centre, as well as the vast council estate of Chelmsley Wood, Solihull is home to numerous underappreciated modernist buildings.
The walk starts at 10:30 in Mell Square (opened 1966), the large shopping precinct currently undergoing extensive demolition and redevelopment. From there we will walk to Solihull School to see inside its unlisted Festival of Britain chapel by Claude Neville White (1959-62). We will then walk back to the town centre through Touchwood (opened 2001) to the Solihull Library and Core Theatre complex (1976 – threatened!) where we will stop for lunch. Built to an Alvar Aalto-influenced design by Solihull resident Stanley Sellers, we will also be taken around an exhibition commemorating the building’s 50th anniversary. We will then walk along Homer Road to see more of Sellers’ work from the 1980s before taking a 15-minute bus ride to our final stop, the gorgeous Our Lady of the Wayside RC Church by Brian Rush (1965-7). The church features an extraordinary moated baptismal font and sculptures by Elisabeth Frink and Walter Ritchie.
The tour will be led by Dr. Matthew Bliss, a Solihull-born urban historian at the University of Warwick.
There will be time for lunch (not included in price).
Matthew Bliss is a Solihull-born urban historian at the University of Warwick.
Aidan Ridyard is the Managing Director of BFF Architects. Aidan has co written The Church Architecture of Richard Twentyman (Forest of Arden Press, 2023).
The tour will go ahead in any weather.
Non-members: £30
C20 Members: £25
Students*: £15.00
Young C20**: £12.50
*For student pricing please select from the dropdown option next to ‘membership number’ on the booking form below.
**For Young C20 members, please email lukas@c20society.org.uk to secure a place.
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The Twentieth Century Society is an IHBC (Institute of Historic Building conservation) recognised CPD provider and is a registered charity, no 1110244.
Above: Our Lady of the Wayside (1965-67) by Brian Rush. Photo by olw-shirley.org.uk