Though an Improvement Act for Duddeston and Nechells was obtained in 1829, the town improvements for the next forty years consisted principally of road making, street paving, market arranging, &c., the opening-up ideas not getting well-rooted in the minds of our governors until some time after the Town Council began to rule the roast.  That a great deal of work was being done, however, is shown by reference to the Borough accounts for 1840, in which year L17,366 was expended in lighting, watching, and otherwise improving the thoroughfares, in addition to L13,794 actually spent on the highways. 1852 saw the removal of the turnpikes, at a cost of over L3,200; in the same year L5,800 was expended in widening the entrance to Temple Row from Bull Street, and L1,800 for rounding off the corner of Steelhouse Lane and Snow Hill.  In October, 1853, it was decided to obtain for L33,000 the 11,540 square yards of land at the corner of Ann Street and Congreve Street, where the Municipal Buildings, Art Gallery, and new Gas Office now stand.  Almost every year since has seen the purchase of properties more or less required for substantial improvements, though some of them may not even yet have been utilised.  A few fancy prices might be named which have had to be paid for odd bits of property here and there, but about the dearest of all was L53 10s. per yard, which the Council paid (in 1864) for the land required to round off the corner of New Street and Worcester Street, a further L1,300 going, in 1873, to extinguish certain leasehold rights.  This is by no means the highest figure given for land in the centre of the town, as Mr. John Feeney, in 1882, paid at the rate of L66 per yard for the site at corner of Cannon Street and New Street, the portion retained for his own use costing him even more than that, as he generously allowed the Corporation to take 30-1/2 yards for L1,000.  The introduction of the railways, and consequent obliteration of scores of old streets, courts, alleys, and passages, has been of vast service towards the general improvement of the town, as well in the matter of health and sanitation, as leading to the construction of many new buildings and the formation of adequate approaches to the several railway stations, the erection of such establishments as the Queen’s Hotel, the Great Western Hotel, &c.  Nor have private property owners and speculators been at all backward, as evidenced by our magnificent modern banking establishments, the huge piles of commercial buildings in Colmore Row, New Street, and Corporation Street, the handsome shops in New Street, High Street, and Bull Street, with many other edifices that our grandfathers never dreamed of, such as the Midland, the Grand, and the Stork Hotels, the palatial Club Houses, the Colonnade and Arcades, New Theatres, Inns of Court, &c., &c.  Many of these improvements have resulted from the falling-in of long leases on the Colmore, the Grammar School, and other estates, while others have been the outcome of a far-seeing