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Canal Street, Aston

B

Barbara Anne

Guest
Hi,

In the 1841 and 1851 Census my ancestors were living in Canal Street, Aston. I found Canal Street on the 1945 map that Aston supplied to this forum ( thanks Aston), but it seems now to have disappeared. I wonder if anyone can tell me anything about the street, type of houses etc. According to the map it was a very short street but the census shows a great number of families with Canal street as an address. Also was it demolished when the Aston Expressway was bulit or before that?
I would love to know something about where they lived.
Thanks,
Barbara
 
It was only a short street as you can see. The 1890 ordenance survey map does not give much detail on the houses but on the north-west corner was a factory called Premier Gun Makers.
If you go to the ordenance survey site you will find the area in reasonable detail and if you use your wheel mouse wheel and ctrl button you can zoom in even more. Go to british-history,ac,uk click on maps, warwickshire and chose the tile above the one with the birmingham dot on it. If you use the zoom buttons above the map and click on the map you may find some info. It sounded like you have not tried this.
 
Thanks to Rupert and Cromwell for your responses.
Thanks Rupert for the link to the British History web site. I hadn't found it for some reason. I managed to find Canal Street and zoomed to see the individual houses. Were they back to backs? Certainly looks like it from the map.
thanks again
Barbara
 
I can see that this thread is a few years old now but I am also trying to establish which Canal Street my ancestors lived in during the 1840s. I assumed it would be near New Canal Street but this photo from the Birmingham Mail suggests it was off Broad Street, any suggestions?canal street and broad street ?.jpeg
 
the only canal st i know of was off lancaster st aston...not sure if the location on that photo is correct it seems to be advertising the shropshire union railways and canals and i cant see that being broad st running across but maybe someone else may know different...here is a link that should take you to the canal st that was off lancaster st..

lyn


https://www.british-history.ac.uk/os-1-to-2500/birmingham/014/01
 
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This picture has been on the forum before, and there was some doubt, as I remember it, that it was actually a Birmingham photo. I think I suggested ~Wolverhampton as a possibility. I Cannot find the thread at present however. In the 1840s the only canal st (other than Ne canal St) listed in directories was the one in Aston, off Lancaster St. there was no Canal St near Broad St. Canal st in fact, although near a canal, does not lead to a canal, which would seem to remove the photo from being the Birmingham Canal St. There are Shropshire union Canal signs at the end of the street in the photo. The Wolverhampton Canal St leads down to the Canal and at the edge at the end of the Street is the Shropshire Union Wharf (in red on map)
map c 1888 wolverhampton showing shropshire canal warehouse.jpg
 
thanks mike you have just confirmed what i said in the previous post...maybe the birm mail should be informed that their caption is incorrect

lyn
 
I agree Mike about it being posted before, but I did not locate it with a search. However I also concur with the suggestion that it is not Birmingham. My feeling is that was the conclusion with the previous posting.
 
The short Canal Street mentioned above did run from Staniforth Street to Lancaster Street.

But there may have been another? Canal Street and New Canal Street, were they one and the same?

The earliest mention I can find, at the minute, for New Canal Street is 1832, but there are mentions of Canal Street from 1820.

The descriptions of Canal Street....1825 building land for sale fronting Canal Street and Banbury Street....1834 sale of the Hope and Anchor, old established Public House, on the corner of Fazeley Street and Canal Street.

So it looks as if Canal Street ran at least between Fazeley Street and Banbury Street. But so does New Canal Street. Perhaps around 1832 the street was renewed or widened?
 
The original post was concerned with 1840s, when the street concerned must have been the one off Lancaster St. However the c1828 map below shows a Canal St which seems to correspond to the late New Canal St running from Bordesley St to Duddeston St. Duddeston St would have approximated to the later Curzon St, and the change would presumably have corresponded to the building of Curzon St station, when there must have been a great deal of alterations made to the area.
map c 1828 showing canal st digbeth.jpg
 
If you find your relatives on the census image, just keep moving to the next or previous image until you come across a different street and see if that places the area. On the 1841 census Baggot St is the street prior to the Canal St being mentioned.
 
The date of “New Canal Street” can be pushed back to at least 1828 by mention in Trade Directories. The map above is of 1828 and so we would be looking for events around that time like the coming of Curzon St Goods Sheds.

The problem with the census, in general, is that it only goes back to 1841, and the chap doing the legwork doesn’t always start from where he left off.
 
It does seem that Canal and New Canal Streets were one and the same, but it would be difficult to put any year on the time of change. New Canal is mentioned in directories from 1828, which is before the coming of the railroad in 1838, and onwards. However it is referred to as Canal Street in 1841, when Commissoners were arguing about an extension of the Queen’s Hotel at Canal Street/ Duddeston Row.
 
Astoness said:
the only canal st i know of was off lancaster st aston...not sure if the location on that photo is correct it seems to be advertising the shropshire union railways and canals and i cant see that being broad st running across but maybe someone else may know different...here is a link that should take you to the canal st that was off lancaster st..

lyn


https://www.british-history.ac.uk/os-1-to-2500/birmingham/014/01
Click to expand...
Lyn , you are dead right about Canal Street running between Staniforth Street & Lancaster Street . If you or somebody has Alton Douglas 2012 book Sixties Revisited , page 21 there is a photo from 1961 taken from Staniforth Street. I lived at number 20, 4th house from the corner,to the left of the man standing on the step. His name is Ronny Thyne, son of Vi & Danny, who lived next door to us. We lived there from 61 to 67 when we were moved out in preparation for demolition. The address was not Aston but central B'ham 4, Aston was 6. We used to cast our votes at Victoria Law Courts. I'm sorry I don't know how to upload the photo but I'm sure somebody else does. Hope this is of some help.
Bryan.
 
hi bryan thats great info thank you...i have a shed load of altons books so i will see if i have that one but ive got a feeling ive seen that photo and it could already be on the forum....im sure we have a thread for staniforth st and i know photos of it are very thin on the ground...if you type in staniforth street in the search box top right of the page you should find the thread...any probs get back to me
all the best

lyn
 
oops got the wrong end of stick i thought you meant there was a photo of staniforth st in altons book but you meant one of canal st:D but yes i do have that one and im looking at the photo you mentioned....later on i will scan it and post it on this thread

lyn
 
Astoness said:
oops got the wrong end of stick i thought you meant there was a photo of staniforth st in altons book but you meant one of canal st:D but yes i do have that one and im looking at the photo you mentioned....later on i will scan it and post it on this thread

lyn
Click to expand...
Lyn, Thank you, I knew you would be able to do it. Love your photo's, really appreciated. I don't say much but I do look a lot, I could write a book of my memories of Birmingham, from a very poor beginning to comparative luxury.
Bryan.
 
thanks bryan i love posting the old photos as they bring back so many memories to our members...one photo is is all it takes to transport us back....i can see that you have been a member for some time but we would love to read your memories of growing up as this is what makes this forum tick and the written word is equally as important as the photos.....so please have a go at it ...you may want to start on our childhood memories thread...just click on the link below....

lyn

https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/childhood-memories.35030/
 
hi bryan my scanner is on the blink so i had to take a pic of it with my camera...best i can do....i was just thinking that as canal st was so tiny this photo must show all of it...you would know

lyn

CANAL ST 001.JPG
 
Astoness said:
hi bryan my scanner is on the blink so i had to take a pic of it with my camera...best i can do....i was just thinking that as canal st was so tiny this photo must show all of it...you would know

lyn

View attachment 123424
Click to expand...
Yes Lyn, that is the whole street. The fence on the left is Whittalls builders yard. Turn left at the bottom and in 150 yards is the island at the bottom of Corporation St /Steelhouse Lane, by the fire station. If you turn right at the bottom of the street it was 20 yards to the lights at the junction of Princip Street / Bagot street / Newtown Row.
Bryan.
 
great description bryan...were there any other houses on the whittallls side...i can only make out about 6 on your side...how lucky you are to have a photo showing your house...something many of our members crave for

lyn
 
Astoness said:
great description bryan...were there any other houses on the whittallls side...i can only make out about 6 on your side...how lucky you are to have a photo showing your house...something many of our members crave for
did
lyn
Click to expand...
No Lyn, I suspect that the houses on the other side had been demolished before my time, might even have been bombed . Then Whittalls moved onto the vacant site. Beyond Whittalls was the back end of a small factory with the entrance on Lancaster Street and not even a window on Canal Street. The factory on our side of the street was I believe a producer of some sort of paper or cardboard packaging. Can't recall the name but my wife did some office cleaning for them in the evening.
Our house had 3 rooms one on top of the other. Door on the street was the only way in or out. Up the entry to the toilet and the washhouse & clothes lines 8 more houses 6 toilets between us with shared cleaning duties and all the residents had wash days allocated, well you know the routine. In the winter of 62/63 every water pipe in the yard froze up for weeks on end and it was ages before the council got around to doing repairs. Don't ask me how we coped but we did. When we moved in we had our daughter Karen who was born in Feb 58 and our son Steve who was born July 61 was newborn. Our youngest son Gary was born in Loveday Street October 65, which was just around the corner. Everybody was poorer than church mice but it was a great community always willing to help each other. Next door to us was an Irish family named Kennedy, they had 11 kids aged between 15 and newborn,can't imagine where they all slept.
Sorry for boring you with all this you must be nodding off by now.
Bryan.
 
absolutely no way are you boring me bryan....your memories remind me so much of where i was born in our nans back to back in paddington st off summer lane...outside lavvies....shared brewus...nan had the one bedroom and mom dad me and my brother had the attic...when i was 5 we moved out to villa street then soon to be followed by 4 more children....as you say we didnt have a lot but would give half of what we did have to someone who had nothing....great community spirit back them..something that is sadly lacking these days....the winter of 63 i was just coming up to 10 and loved all that snow...our mom couldnt get me in..please keep posting bryan look forward to hearing more from you:)

lyn
 
Well done Bryan, though on the other side of town we had very much the same sort of lives and everyone who shares their memories stirs others.
As Lyn ( our super star !) says, please keep posting your written pictures ! As that old lady said " Every little helps.
Cheers Tim.
 
My great-great grandfather was born in 1839 and his birth certificate shows 1, New Canal Street. By 1847 his father was living at 1, Canal Street (which adjoined 106, Bordesley Street), so it wasn't "New" then. (Numbers 1 to 6, along with 106, were sold by auction, with their tenants, at the White Hart Inn, Digbeth, and my 3xgreat-grandfather showed people around). In Rapkin's map of 1851 it is still Canal Street, but in Bartholomew's map of 1866 the New has returned...
 
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