History of Norton Hall

Lord Norton owned the Saltley Estate and he donated large swathes of land from the estate to the community, for the development of one of the first parks in Birmingham, Adderley park, and also for community buildings including St Saviours Church and St Peters College.

Lord Norton died in 1905 and Norton Memorial Hall was built in his memory.

During its lifetime the building has had various uses, it was used as a Sunday School, a working man’s institute and reading room, and during the second world war it was used by the fire service to house fire engines.

Post-war, the building became a school annexe, but then fell into disuse after the opening of the local St Saviour’s Junior School.

In the early 1970’s a group of radical university students living in the area wanted to contribute to improving the local community, they held regular public meetings, and found that there was a strong desire and need to have somewhere in the community for children to play safely. 

They identified the grounds of the then derelict Norton Hall building, although in an uninhabitable state of disrepair the group were able to use the grounds to build a public adventure playground for local children.

Norton Hall was a visual wreck, but the children in the community loved it.  There was an old air raid shelter with an aerial runway from the first floor down, timber climbing frames and other make-shift playground equipment that included donated mattresses to jump on.

The students and community continued to raise funds through various activities and then began to take local children on trips and continue to develop the playground.

In 1972 the enthusiasm and sense of ‘community’ became the catalyst that encouraged local residents to formalise their ideas and plans and a community association was officially formed.

Since that time, now nearly 50 years ago, Norton Hall has continued to act as an anchor in the community, with many local residents holding fond memories of their time at the centre, not only taking part in our projects with children, young people and women, but also; attending the pensioners group, joining in with the  Rock Against Racism movement, watching UB40 practicing, attending a musical youth gig or even getting married and having their wedding reception in the big hall.

From the initial development of services at Norton Hall, through to today, our community has always been at the heart of everything we do. The voices of local people continue to inform and contribute to the development of our services for local people and the local community.