Bull Street Quaker Burial Ground

[O.C.]

Now Miss ...You know what happened to you in Stratford upon Avon when I left you talking to a tree ....
Well I should not have done and I apologize even though its a bit late
but the bit of info you supplied has helped me in such a way its put everything into perspective.............only a Nechells gal could have tied all the loose ends up so thanks Chris

 

[O.C.]

Alternative spellings as Badgeley/ Badgley/ Baddesley.
In the Quaker Meeting Houses of Britain it is listed as
Baddesley Ensor (grid ref SP 272 982).
A new meeting house was built in 1722 close to earlier one and it does
say the burial ground was possibly common to both. (Rebuilt in 1768 and
eventually closed, let to Methodists, and then sold to them in 1922. the
book says it still stands as their school room.)
The original building, formerly 2 adjoining cottages Manor Cottages and
the gardens which became the burial ground, reverted to a dwelling.
So there you have it
Mary is a mystery no more
Solved and dusted and filed

 

[Catkin]

Hello Ornette, I am aware that it is complicated and all depends on the circumstances. Once the medical examiner (Usually two of them) have examined the corpse papers are signed to release the body either to the coroner for autosy or to the relatives if there are any. If you say when you were studying law and i do not dispute that fact that no-one owns the body i think the better words are (responsible for ) we have to abide by the rules which i have just explained or people would do just exactly as they liked and that is something that would not be allowed. Bodies are sacred and should be treated rightly so, even a body that has lain for many many years has to be treated as such when moved. I hope i have made myself a litttle clearer on the subject, in the end everything comes down to circumstances. But the body still has to be released along with the legal paperwork...Cat

 

[O.C.]

I thought you would like to hear the final out come from the start of this thread….
Off I went to find the Quaker burial ground at Baddesley which going back to the 1600’s was like looking for a needle in a haystack …boy was I wrong and what a morning I have had and what knowledgeable charming people have I met………
Armed with information on the location of the Methodist Church from a local women who had lived their 40 years I checked it out and took a few snaps ……then had lunch in the local pub and was told by the landlord it was the wrong place as he had lived in the village for ages and his father was born their ………so told of the right location I was then told to go in the post office where I could get a book for £6 on the History of the village going back to 1200’s Low Seams and High Vistas by Albert Fretwell who sadly had died a few years ago…. the Postmistresses’ husband then took me to a neibours house who quite charmingly put her coat on and said “Come on I will take you up to the old Meeting place and burial ground” so off we went
I was introduced to the owner who had bought the place (and burial ground ) and was doing it all up as a restoration project
He showed me the inside and allowed me to take a few snaps and told me all he knew about the place
The First snap is of the old beams inside the old Meeting house
The other two are pics taken standing on the old burial grounds looking back at the Old Meeting house which when he bought it did not have a roof……..
He was thrilled I could give him more information just as I was thrilled with the info I was given ……….so a firm bond was formed and in the summer he has asked me and my wife to go back to swap a few tales on all we know ……………….
So ya see this is what its all about helping folk and today five strangers helped me….did I strike lucky or did I go the extra mile……..
P.S he can go down 2 feet into the burial ground before he has to get permission to go any further which he does not want to do ....The large stone he put to be used as a seat was the original step to the Meeting House ...and he did tell me tales about the local kids who years ago use to dig the graves up in the hope of finding any thing of value not realizing they were Quakers who did not own things of value like silver or gold ....all in all a good day and tied loose ends up
Extra PS
The extra bits I will put on the Blitz thread

 

[sylviasayers]

What an interesting and fruitful day you've had Cromwell, but you deserve it, you have helped so many people here on the Forum and elsewhere. We look forward to the other tales you might unearth on your next visit.

 

[Wendy]

Graham thats wonderful news. You are lucky too I worked in Baddesley Ensor for about three years. It took a while for me to be accepted but I must admit when I was the people had hearts of gold. I used to do Mrs Fretwell's hair I think Albert was her father in law. The most common name in the village is Sweet. The last time we visited was to Michael's cousins funeral, the family had lived there for many years they moved there from Brum. The inner sanctum is the Social Club in New Street, I went there a couple of times. Also a lot of children were evacuated to the village in the war I was told many tales when I worked there.

 

[O.C.]

Wendy, Maureens says its a good job she did not know you were a hairdresser as she would have paid you in shoes...
Only told you a bit about the village as I have been promised a guided tour of the underground house in Baxterley Park which is in Baddesley the old underground ice houses that belonged to Baxterley Hall and many more hidden gems in the area which has got me all fired up but thats it
or the thread will change.........

 

[Pomgolian]

Like everyone I pleased you obtained what you set out to get Graham.
P.S
About Stratford! no prob's there Crommie M8 it happens to me often... I've talked to Supermarket shelves, Clothes racks, Rivers and more things and objects over the years. However it's when people let me walk into things without warning me it's a pain, as that hurts and I get bruised.

 

[Catkin]

NEW INFORMATION.

Shortly there will be a single system to all deaths, Not referable to the coroner. So things are abouts to change...Cat

 

[Wendy]

Cromwell my weakness is shoes tell Maureen!
I hope you have a great time on your visit. There is a strong connection between Baddesley Ensor, Baxterly and a few people from the village worked for Sir William Dugdale at Merivale Hall.

Pom I must admit when I met you because of your vibrant personality. I sometimes forgot about your sight disability and then felt terribly guilty.
Sorry to go off thread folkes but I wanted to answer this one.

 

[Wendy]

This was posted to me in a Facebook group which I thought may be of interest to some.

The man who posted it had a company that specialised in exhumations. We exhumed the inner part of I think Rackhams or Lewis's in Birmingham, they had a inner court yard and started to dig footing for a building but came across coffins, we later found out it was part of the old Qauker burial ground which snow hill station was built on, i did not think it went that far up but must have.

 

[mikejee]

There used to be a quaker Burial ground behind the Lewis's maib building site. It seems to have been there still in the 1950s.

 

[Wendy]

This gentleman was doing work in the 70's/80's I believe his company were called when graves or remains were found. It nice to talk to someone who was actually there and not hearsay. His company also did the exhumations at Key Hill when work was done to widen the Metro Line.

 

[Andrew Fincham]

Might be worth noting that Quaker Meetings were advised in 1717 and again in 1766 to remove all gravestones, which were considered a 'vain custom'.

 

[Lloyd]

This post and those numbered 47 - 54 below moved to this thread from the Snow Hill Station thread.

The map below dated 1892-1914 (from the site: https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=52.4959&lon=-1.9081&layers=176&b=6) shows the Gt Western Arcade roofed-over, (previously an open cutting), I wonder if the pupils at the Blue Coat School (between the arcade and the church yard) suffered from train noise?
View attachment 125567
Peg.

The school faced the churchyard, so I doubt it. Something else the map shows that I didn't know of, there was a cemetery between Bull Street and Upper Priory, Steelhouse Lane and The Minories, where (or very near) Lewis's was later.

 

[mossg]

When I was a lad we used to think it was owned by the quakers, maybe it still is.

 

[Lady Penelope]

Yes, I think it belonged to the Quakers. We went to the meeting house there on one of the Heritage Days some time ago and the gravestones are still there, set into the walkway. It's strange that the meeting house isn't marked. I'm sure it was off Doctor Johnstone's Passage at the side of Lewis's and the back of Grey's furniture store.

 

[mikejee]

Lloyd
That was the Quaker burial ground. There is a post somewhere on the forum where a member remembers working on building work at Lewis's an dskeletons being found and removed for reburial.

 

[Phil]

Re Burial ground. There's a thread here https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/bull-street-quaker-burial-ground.12697/

Viv.

Viv

I am unsure if I have posted this before, but it shows the tombstones that were replaced around the area of the Quaker Meeting House on Bull Street when the bodies were disinterred for the removal elsewhere when alterations and renovations were carried out. As can be seen from the tombstone some quite important people were buried here including a lot of the Cadbury family.

Please if you think this is in the wrong place feel free to move it wherever you think best.

 

[mikejee]

Here is an article about prominent early Quakers from Carl Chinn's old Brum no 2

 

[Janet Hunt]

I knew that my wife’s relative were buried in a large vault in the Quaker Friends Burial Ground which I had seen over ten years ago or more..
Nicholas Juxon died 1784 age 56
Elizabeth Juxon died 1821 age 68
Mary Juxon died 1897 age 25
Phoebe Juxon (widow) died 1784 born 1714
All Laid in FA 2
So as a long lost relative was over from the U.S. I decided to take a photo of the Vault so he could find it as it’s a small burial ground which was just behind Lewis’s…the entrance is in Bull St next to the Minories
Imagine my shock …horror that when I got there the Quakers had thought to build a conference centre over the burial ground placing the gravestones of the noted citizens of Brum just by the front entrance in a so called garden of remembrance …the Cadbury’s Lloyds, Gibbins, Lovell’s etc moving all their remains to be reinterred at a cemetery that they could no give me the location to and when I enquired where the Tablet had gone for the Juxon’s they gave me a cock and bull story which proved to be untrue as I checked it out …….I wrote to them for answers but as to yet... No Reply

Been reading an article about Quakers online yesterday as I work next door to the Priory Rooms on Bull Street which is run by the Quakers. Its Very interesting have attached some pictures of the original graveyard that was in a back garden roughly near the Great Western Arcade. Could not find your wife's relatives on the plan.

 

[Janet Hunt]

The article I was reading explains about the old meeting rooms and gives more pictures of the old rooms
article and referencing can be found here
https://theironroom.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/the-old-meeting-house/

 

[Janet Hunt]

This was posted to me in a Facebook group which I thought may be of interest to some.

The man who posted it had a company that specialised in exhumations. We exhumed the inner part of I think Rackhams or Lewis's in Birmingham, they had a inner court yard and started to dig footing for a building but came across coffins, we later found out it was part of the old Qauker burial ground which snow hill station was built on, i did not think it went that far up but must have.

Some confusion around this .The burials found under the Minories were from the old priory or so I thought. The quaker burials were across the road near to the great Western arcade and were exhumed and buried in vaults under the priory rooms building from what I have read extract from article in

The Old Meeting House

It is thought that a small Quaker community established in Birmingham in the 1650s. Initially meetings for worship were held in private houses but in 1681 a house and garden were bought in New Hall…

theironroom.wordpress.com

"It is thought that a small Quaker community established in Birmingham in the 1650s. Initially meetings for worship were held in private houses but in 1681 a house and garden were bought in New Hall Lane for use as a meeting house and burial ground. New Hall Lane became known as Bull Lane (and later Monmouth Street) and was located at the end of what is now Colmore Row. The meeting house was located roughly where the entrance to the Great Western Arcade is today. Unfortunately, no plan of the meeting house has survived in the Central Area Meeting Archives deposited here, but there is a plan of the graveyard, drawn by the banker Charles Lloyd (1748 – 1828), with a key containing a list of names of those buried there."

"The meeting house on Monmouth St. needed frequent repairs, so in 1702, it was decided to build a new meeting house, paid for by members of the meeting. This was on Bull St., on the site of where the current meeting house entrance gates now stand. Land behind the meeting house was used as a burial ground. "

 

[Janet Hunt]

Here is an article about prominent early Quakers from Carl Chinn's old Brum no 2

View attachment 153664

Nice read I quite like the ethos of the Quakers