The quirky Birmingham landmark - once abandoned custard factory, now buzzing with 400 businesses

We explore how this iconic Digbeth site became a creative sanctuary for over 400 businesses.

This place was never meant to survive.

Left derelict after the custard trade moved on, it could've gone the way of so many other factories in Birmingham - flattened and forgotten.

Watch the video: Richard Gullick

But instead, it became something else entirely. In the early 90s, developers, artists, and grafters turned the ruins into a haven for people with ideas, and nowhere else to put them.

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Now, the Custard Factory is home to over 400 businesses - and it's more than just a postcode.

It's a mindset.

It's not just the shops and studios that give the Custard Factory its character.

It's the people. Tattooists next to tech start-ups.

DJs alongside fashion brands.

And a culture that values collaboration over competition. Rent's cheaper than the city centre.

The walls are covered in graffiti, not corporate logos. And for many, it's the only place they could afford to start. This isn't gentrification - it's regeneration done with roots still intact.

The vibe here is intentional - it's built for browsing. Brickwork left rough.

Murals, neon lights, metal sculptures welded from scrap.

It's part street market, part art gallery, part industrial time capsule.

There's no glossy uniformity, no focus-grouped storefronts. And because of that, people come here not just to buy something - but to feel something.

For many traders, that's the whole point. Sell something real. Stay weird. Keep going.

Of course, it's not perfect. There are fears that success might attract the very forces that kill spaces like this - big brands, rising rents, council neglect.

But for now, the Custard Factory stands its ground. It shows what can happen when old buildings are reclaimed - not demolished - and when creatives are given a place to build, fail, and rebuild again.

That's why, during Independent Retailer Month, this place deserves more than a mention. It deserves to be the model.The Custard Factory isn't just surviving - it's evolving.

A space shaped by stories, not spreadsheets. And in a city that often flattens the past to build the future, this is one patch of ground where both still stand - side by side, and louder than ever.