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A B row Aston-Birmingham

Re: AB Row

Getting back to this Smallest Park thing I think after a message from member "TCWARD" (Terry) I can put the vagueness concerning the location to rest. If you look at the two maps one 1902 and the other 1952 you will see on the 1953 map a location marked with a red X. This according to Terry was the location of the park, on the 1902 map this is marked as a public house. The pub was the Angel and it was located at sixty three and a half Coleshill St. OK so we have located the correct location, but I still don't remember it.
 

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Re: AB Row

well done Terry! after all these years it seems the mystery is solved. Iv'e found all this information very interesting, thanks to all who have contributed . Lets see if we can find another mystery to solve!
 
I know the spot we are on about now. I think the pub was either bombed or demolished and the waste ground became a grassy area with fencing and became a play area.
 
Re: AB Row

hi phil, if you look at the site where the pub is marked,go two buildings down towards duke st , you will see an opening,thats the park.it is the leftside of venns junk shop no 62 .phil i think where the wallis on your tram pic is the pub site,it was alll ways a bomb site to us terry
 
Some recent photos of AB Row. The roadway has gone, and might be grassed over!





One week earlier



February 2014





October 2013

 
AB Row is now completely behind new hoardings! Only a bit of grass outside of the hoardings!
 
Gone! and soon to be forgotten. This area must be the most changed landscape anywhere. Nothing remains of the neighborhood of a lifetime for many. It's a fresh start.
 
Even Novia Scotia Street disappeared a few years ago when BOA was built (but Grosvenor Street survived as it connects Jennens Road to Eastside City Park.
 
Clipped from John Pigott Smith's 1851 survey (Sheet 96) LoB Archives and Heritage showing AB Row and the junction with Belmont Row

P1020704b.jpg
 
Rupert will correct me if I am wrong....

Leading from Dale End toward the junction with AB Row and Prospect Row was first called Coleshill Street (c 1795) which around the time of the Inner Ring Road scheme became re-aligned northwards somewhat and later dualled to become Jennens Road of which the western end shared the original Jennens Row and Buck Street alignment.
 
Speedwing

From what I recall from memory they haven't moved the roads so much as they have improved them and renamed them (well more like redistributed them). If you look a these before and after maps you will see what I mean. Coleshill St on the new map is in fact the old Lawrence Street, and Jennings Rd is made up of Coleshill St, Prospect Row & Ashted Row and I think at the end it might incorporate a bit of Jennings Row.
 

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I suppose that in the earlier days of horse transportation and fewer landmarks; Coleshill would be a landmark to aim for and I understand that it was a posting centre. This would certainly have been the way to go there...the street to leave Brum by. Coleshill Street became Prospect Row for a short stretch at the junction with A B Row and then Ashted Row at about Woodcock St or so. Personally I would have thought that Jennens should be Coleshill. Makes more sense to me and fits better with tradition perhaps and it is still the route. Maybe they can change Coleshill to Jennnenshill.
I have lost track of what this area is becoming space for. When I think of it, I can't remember this area being a highly industrialised one...maybe small workshops. My familiarity was one of transit only though. My way to town and home again.
 
Jennens not "Jennings". Walk it every working week day! Got a lot of new lampposts installed! Different types!
 
Maybe they spelt it incorrectly. OK you are right. Who was Jennen anyway and he/she only had a Row.
 
Howe Street, Nova Scotia Street , Buck Street , Doe Street, Princess Street , Princess Row, Market Street have all been eaten up by The uni now
 
Although Nova Scotia Street doesn't exist any more, you can still see the line of the road in front of BOA (Birmingham Ormiston Academy).

Howe Street still exists, but it leads to Millennium Point Car Park!
 
HI PHIL;
Have you got any pictures of A B row foundry castings that used to be at the top end that was there for donkeys years
right up until the demo; clearance it was a really a big black hole to work in or that old pub across the rd from it
i think it was the corner of woodcock street have a good day best wishes astonian;;
 
Interesting stuff here.

This from my ever expanding pile of references for the area, firstly from William Hutton's Perambulations:

"We now cross the Lichfield road, down Duke-street, then the Coleshill road at the A B house. From thence down the meadows, to Cooper's mill; up the river to the foot of Deritend bridge; and then turn sharp to the right, keeping the course of a drain in the form of a sickle, through John a Dean's hole, into Digbeth"

(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13926/13926-h/13926-h.htm)

His route around Brum largely following the then Birmingham boundary.

This allegedly from Pevsner:

"1675, Of about that date were A-B House (Aston and Birmingham) beside the bridge, raised on piles above the floods, and two Dutch-gabled houses:"

The latter referring to Cooper's Farm and Ravenhurst House


Despite a number of broken links this is an interesting thread. Of course, my interest is in the Red Lion pub. The A. B. House mentioned "beside the bridge" was at Deritend Bridge NOT here. However, the house with the
old date stone was once known as A. B. House [fits with Hutton's walk]. Attached is the 1861 census for No.1 where the enumerator has included A. B. House in the property reference. Note that a publican is living here. I am thinking that this is possibly the Red Lion, a pub with a very short lifespan - only a couple of years at most. By the way, I agree with Peter's post and on later maps, produced in the late Victorian period, the building is on the edge of the Parliamentary, Ward and Union boundaries.
 

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