Amazing Grace rings out from a piano in one of the last remaining usable spaces in the Friends Institute on Moseley Road.
The arts therapy group that has found comfort there for years is practicing for their last night playing in the old room decorated with community paintings ahead of closure on Thursday, April 2.
They are one of a number of groups of locals that will lose access to the building gifted by Richard Cadbury to the people of Birmingham in the 1980s when it shuts, sparking upset from those who turn to it most often.
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Birmingham City Council is the acting custodian of the listed building and on Thursday at around 3pm, BirminghamLive understands that the door will be locked to the piano players, the artists, those who find friendship and support through poetry and writing groups and those who just want a handful of cutlery from the charity shop that helps to pay the rent on the music room.
On the juncture of Sparkbrook and Highgate, the once-resplendent building has been used for countless community activities over the years, from Boys Brigade meetings, football sessions, dancing, parties and knitting circles.
The big stage in the performance theatre, signposted by a hand-painted sign, is now covered in rubble from the crumbling ceiling, making it unusable.
Those who use the space tell us that an old roof leak and no working heating means that the parquet floor is warped and a section of the ceiling is being propped up.
The Friends Institute was built in 1897 under the patronage of Richard Cadbury, a bust of who now sits on the floor under the microwave, ‘for safekeeping’.
It was a Quaker meeting house initially, later used as a coffee shop and hire spaces that more old hand-painted signs show were once home to the Birmingham Theatre School, Shakespeare in Education, the Loudmouth Theatre Co, Banner Theatre Co, Women and Theatre Co and Full Potential Arts.
The old stone stairs show where countless feet walked alongside wooden bannisters, paintwork and plaster flaked to the floor.
In the old cafe, racks and racks of clothing and household items are sold for pennies, bedsheets and baby walkers, cutlery and warm clothes.
Inside Jayne’s charity shop, remnants of the old cafe kitchen still visible(Image: Kirsty Bosley)
It’s set off against a backdrop of a kitchen now showing significant signs of decay, with yet more crumbling concrete around old cooker hoods and, in parts, beautifully hand-painted nature scenes to lift the spirits of those who visit.
In the organised chaos, a man who has arrived wearing pyjamas gestures towards a rack of hoodies. He says ‘please, miss?’ and Jayne Baggett, 60, steers him to grab what he needs.
Jayne runs the shop and the Moseley Road Community Conservation Trust, which she set up in 2018 after Birmingham City Council Property Services advertised the building for sale ‘in an effort to prevent the immediate sale and to allow more time for wider consultation and consideration of the current and future potential of the building’.
Now, eight years later, she’s having to tell customers that the fight to keep the space open is drawing to an end. It includes Isabella Chiaradia, 52, who has been bringing her sister Maria to craft sessions and shopping trips to help ‘get her out of the house’ and meet new friends.
Maria and Isabella Chiaradia are devastated about the closure(Image: Kirsty Bosley)
Isabella is tinkering in the shop when Jayne stops to talk about how she’s been breaking the news to the community that it’s closing.
“It’s been really difficult,” she says. “It really struck me when I told Isabella and Maria and Isabella said she was devastated.
“How this is not just a charity shop but it’s much more than that, it’s a community space. It really struck me then.
“I’ve been saying to myself, ‘I’ve got my grandkids, it’s OK, it’s exhausting, it’s tiring’. It provides me with loads of social opportunities, I’ve got real health problems.
“But when I got home…”
Jayne Baggett is holding on to hope at Friends Institute(Image: Kirsty Bosley)
Jayne explains how she used to work as a community based researcher, learning about local people and what challenges they faced, working with higher-ups in local authorities as well as the people who lived in the spaces.
“Something that came up time and time again was missing community spaces. How important it is to people to have places to go to that cost very little, where they can talk with each other, share time with each other.
“I’d knock on people’s doors and they’d ask for my help with things like their gas bill, letters from the school or houses, problems with the bins. I thought hang on, where are the local services if people are so desperate they’re asking me, a total stranger, to help them out?
“I’ve been very fortunate in my life, so it might only be half an hour to help them, to listen to their problems, make suggestions or find them agencies that give them the help they need.”
She adds: “What I wanted to do here was provide a space, keep this building open, to be a space for people to come, where relevant organisations would be. People could come in as a first point and we could provide some of the resources that the community needs, in goods and also in advice, suggestions, time, who might be able to help and how you might be able to contact those people.
“What really struck me, talking to Isabella and Maria, was that thanks to the support of the community, thanks to the support of the shop helpers, my neighbour that’s into car booting, our shop assistant, I’ve been able to provide for people something of the space that I hoped that people would be getting from formal services and local authorities that are supposed to provide these things for people and they don’t!”
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Jayne begins to cry frustrated tears.
“They get the funding. And we’re doing it!” she says. “Out of our love. Out of our feeling that everybody is equal and everyone is worthy of respect and consideration.
“Why is it that the council spends money that they have to spend on private developers, subsidising developments in town that mean nothing to communities?
“Why are they closing local libraries? Why are they closing these services and facilities that I thought local authorities were supposed to provide?”
The kitchen area of the old cafe in the Friends Institute(Image: Kirsty Bosley)
I notice that nothing in the charity shop is boxed up to go and ask how things are going with preparations to leave. Is there hope something could still change.
“Absolutely!” Jayne says. “I think that’s part of it coming on so quickly, many of us still can’t believe it’s going to happen. It’s such a vital space, this building is important to so many people and it has so much potential.”
She adds: “We’re hoping for the best. There’s so few of us involved in this so I’d appeal to anyone who has expertise or experience in management things that we might need to keep things going somehow, to keep things going or to develop a plan for the future. That want to work together as part of a team.
“We want to find people within the local authority who is willing to find a way forward instead of just giving up on it.
“In the short term, our activities are temporarily moving to Moseley Arts School to minimising disruption.
“I haven’t found anywhere for the charity shop to move to but I don’t want to move it! The point of it was to do what we could to keep the building open and enable people to come forward to participate in its future if it would like to.
“If anyone knows of any professional organisations or funding that might be able to help in that capacity as well, people who are interested but need support, training or whatever in order to be able to do that over time, that would be fantastic.”
Birmingham City Council told BirminghamLive that the building was closed ‘after being made aware of urgent health and safety concerns’ within the building.
A spokesperson said: “In March 2024, as part of the council’s budget-setting process, it was determined that the council could no longer fund community centres as a non-statutory service, including subsiding operating costs at the Friends Institute.
“The building is held in trust by the council and therefore it is for the trustees to determine its future, with approval from the Charities Commission.
“In January 2026, the Council’s Trust and Charities Committee agreed disposal of a number of trust holdings including the Friends Institute.
“We recognise the building’s deterioration and after being made aware of urgent health and safety concerns, a decision was made to close the building to ensure people’s safety.
“This decision was taken in February, with groups and businesses given notice to leave the building.
“In the meantime, we are seeking professional advice on the best way to secure the building.
“We are continuing to support those affected by the closure.
“The trustees are committed to working with partners to ensure long-term sustainable use of the building and welcome all interested parties so that this important space can continue to serve Birmingham’s communities.”
The charity shop will continue selling until 3pm on Thursday, April 2.
Anyone who wishes to show support by shopping the half price closing down sale can do so at the Friends Institute, 220 Moseley Road, B12 0DG.