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Broad Street

Hi again,
Aidan

Here is what I believe are a couple Phyllis Nicklin slides of St Peters's Church & School dating from the 1960's.

Phil
Great to see any photo's at all, but in colour! Many thanks for these, although I think the second one from Phil in post #70 has been reversed at some point.
I've had a chat with my brother who was 4 years ahead of me and he confirms my somewhat vague memories posted earlier - and added that there was a Mr Griffiths that the kids jibed at between themselves regarding his balding pate. It seems as a family we attended the church although I have no recollection of that at all.

Regards, Gerry.
 
Gerry

Looking at the photo I believe you are right, it doesn't tie up with the others like that. That is the way it is displayed on the site dedicated to Phyllis Nicklin though.

Any thanks should go to Phyllis for her wonderful photos, but I'm sure whoever reversed it wont mind if I flip it back, because it does look more real this way.

Phil

StPetersChurch.jpg
 
As I said previously I used to park my car in the car park which was on the site of St Peter's. I remember that the road used to zigzag here. I was interested to see the terrace of houses which had gone before I knew the area. I think we are inclined to forget that people lived in houses in the centre of towns. I led a walk around Oldbury town centre a few years ago and some one asked me where did the people live. I replied right here where we are standing on the side of what is now the ring road.
 
Hi Phil,
...That is the way it is displayed on the site dedicated to Phyllis Nicklin though.

...but I'm sure whoever reversed it wont mind if I flip it back...
Yep, I suspected as much, sorry if it looked like I meant I thought you had mucked about with it, just poor wording on my part.
I had been looking on that site yesterday primarily for railway related images, I wouldn't have thought for a moment of seeing if there was anything on this - it must be pretty much 48 years since I gave it any thought at all! - so thanks again to all for putting these photo's up.
I've often heard people say something along the lines of "that picture brought memories flooding back" but it's a new experience for me and I was surprised I even managed to pluck a name out of the air from so long ago. I considered checking with my brother before my first post but was so caught up by it I just trusted that flow of residual memory, I'm somewhat relieved he remembers it as I did!

Regards, Gerry.
 
...I am also eager to see if there is any representation at all (sketch, painting, engraving...) of Baskerville's place, Easy Hill and of his Mausoleum (I think it was pyramid shaped?).

I am sure many will know the story of his afterlife. Baskerville, an atheist, was buried at his own request upright, in unconsecrated ground in the garden of his house, Easy Hill. When a canal was built through the land his body was placed in storage in a warehouse for several years (and on display to the discerning public) before being secretly deposited in the crypt of Christ Church (demolished 1899), Birmingham. Later his remains were moved, with 600 other bodies from the crypt in the dead of night, to consecrated catacombs at Warstone Lane Cemetery.

OK - managed to answer my own question with the help of Birmingham University Archaeology Dept https://www.barch.bham.ac.uk/projects/libraryofbirmingham.html :

Easy Hill the home of John Baskerville – Printsetter and Japanner

The development of the New Library site began in the post-medieval period, with the construction in 1745 of Easy Hill house, by John Baskerville, the renowned printer and typesetter. John Baskerville was one of the early members of Birmingham’s intellectual elite, the Lunar Society that included amongst others Matthew Boulton (of Soho House), James Watt (the inventor of the Steam Engine ), Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) and Josiah Wedgewood (the Staffordshire Potter). He also shared a close professional friendship with Benjamin Franklin, the US President who shared his love of printing.

The property first appears on Thomas Hanson’s maps of 1778, followed by Snape’s 1779 Plan of Birmingham. These plans show a group of buildings to the east of the site, within the study area, with a well laid out set of gardens to the west of the house. To the northwest of this is a small wooded section, possibly an orchard. Documentary sources tell us that it was surrounded by an ‘extensive paddock’. Outside of the study area, the maps show that the Birmingham Canal, which loops around the site on its north, west and south sides, was in place by this point having been constructed in 1768-72. To the south of Broad Street, directly opposite the site, the industrial development of this part of the city had already begun, with the construction of iron foundries on the north side of the new Birmingham wharf. A brick kiln is also known to have been in use in this area in 1751.

This period of the study area’s history is of tremendous importance to the history of Birmingham as a whole, not only because it was the residence of John Baskerville, but because it also housed ‘a mill for the making of paper’. This appears to refer to Baskerville’s initial business of Japanning, a trade he continued after moving to Easy Hill. Baskerville died in 1775.

After Baskerville’s death the house passed to his daughter, who held it until 1788, when it passed into the hands of John Ryland. Most of the information on the structure of Easy Hill house dates from the occupancy of John Ryland, who lived there for the very brief period of 1788-1791.
 
Colour - even better Phil, thank you. Is this the Church that was designed to look like a factory to avoid anti-Catholic feeling, or am I getting mixed up?
I'm getting good at answering my own questions.... Bill D'Argue's excellent website https://billdargue.jimdo.com/placenames-gazetteer-a-to-y/places-i/the-irish-quarter says:

Following the Act of Toleration, when Christians other than Anglicans were allowed to profess their faith openly, Birmingham's first post-Reformation Roman Catholic church was built in 1688 on the eastern fringe of the town in Masshouse Lane. It was burned by an anti-papist mob only two months later, and Catholic worship was moved out of town to Edgbaston. It was to be nearly 100 years before another Roman Catholic church was built, St Peter's in Broad Street, just beyond the built-up town, this time on the west side. Designed in an unobtrusive style in brick to resemble a factory, it survived until 1969. On the northern edge of the town St Austin's opened in Shadwell Street in 1806, the precursor of St Chad's Cathedral. These churches were built to cater for a resident community of perhaps two dozen old Roman Catholic families from the local area. In 1853 the Oratory Church of the Immaculate Conception was opened on the Hagley Road, an institution more for priests than for laity.
 
View attachment 54827In the late 1780s this crescent of 23 houses was an arhitects vision, completion of the project was prevented by various problems including the Napolonic wars. Consequently only the buildings on the left of the picture were built. Because Birmingham was rapidly expanding and becoming more smokey the area close to five ways was frowned upon as a place to dwell. A theatre group established themselves in these buildings and called themselves The Crescent Theatre. I read somewhere once that Thomas Attwood lived there for a time.
 
Thanks Stitcher - that's a rare find, excellent.

I have been looking for a picture of it as there was a Panorama advertised by S.J.Richardson https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=31354&p=330226#post330226 on what I assume was the corner of Baskerville Place and the Crescent in Sep 1816. As it is noticeable by having been damaged by a gale of wind, I assume it was some sort of wooden structure, perhaps on the green in front of this Crescent
 
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Somewhere during my 70 years I have a vague recollection of hearing that Broad St was once known as 'PIG LANE'. I asked a friend of equal age iif he had ever heard this but he said no. Later, he phoned me and told me to Google 'Huttons Perambulation'. I found it fascinating as it was a new site to me. If you have not already perused this site I think you will also be intrigued with it.
View attachment 54844This is Kempsons map from 1810.
 
Glad you found it of interest Aiden. This is a little off topic but I feel I ought to post it anyway.
If my posts seem a little spaced out, no not that sort of spaced out, I mean sporadic. It is because I have to tend to my greenhouse, water my hanging baskets, water and pick the tomato's, dead head the dahlias, pick the beans, cauliflowers marrows parsnips and take the wife shopping etc. Then when I do sit down I am sewing, every now and again I leave the X, stitch to check the forum to see if I need to reply to anything. This is why I am not really trying to learn anything new but I am more than willing to share whatever I have on the history of Birmingham.
 
I grew up in Harborne (hence my interest in this part of town) so no idea why I assumed a darker connotation with the word Stitcher...
 
Somewhere during my 70 years I have a vague recollection of hearing that Broad St was once known as 'PIG LANE'. I asked a friend of equal age iif he had ever heard this but he said no. Later, he phoned me and told me to Google 'Huttons Perambulation'. I found it fascinating as it was a new site to me. If you have not already perused this site I think you will also be intrigued with it.
View attachment 54844This is Kempsons map from 1810.

No one has commented on the map. I don't know about Pig Lane but this map has reminded me that Broad Street was known as Islington Street on this map not to be confused with the present Islington Row.
 
Hello David, I too noticed that although I have never heard the fact mentioned in conversation.
 
Broad St wasn't all Islington (not Islington St) , but only the far end. The Kempson map misses out the B of Broad, and so the street looks as if it is called Islington Road Street. It can be seen better on the 1866 map below

broad_st_c_1866A~0.jpg
 
And what better place for a pub (and brewery) than the junction between the two?

I think I made a mistake in post-83 as the site refers to the Hagley Road turnpike not Broad St/Islington, although doesn't dismiss it. Any idea where the toll booths would have been on Hagley Rd/Five Ways (bit off-topic perhaps)?
 
img672.jpgView attachment 54910 The Rep now stands on this site. In this 1947 picture the row of buildings accomodate a cigar and stamp shop, which closed in 1933. The right hand half of the row was owned by Messengers who produced brass fittings and candelabara/chandeliers. Messengers along with another near-by factory named Boltons produced 16,000 miles of copper wire for the first Atlantic telegraph cable. The white part of the row was home to Joseph Sampson Gamgee. read below.
View attachment 54875JOSEPH SAMPSON GAMGEE.
This very eminent looking gent founded the Hospital Saturday Fund, a scheme by which workers would make a donation of all money earned on one Saturday once a year. Money raised in this manner was used to build an extension to The Queens Hospital, the forunner to the world famous Birmingham Accident Hospital. He was a pioneering surgeon who lived 1828-86. He is reputed to have invented Gamgee Tissues, artificial sponges and cotton wool.
 
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My understanding although I have nothing to back it up is that the toll gates where right at the Five Ways junction, now under the roundabout.

Stitcher, I don't understand the ref to Dr Gamgee (who invented cotton wool) in this thread
 
I got my stories mixed up, I have now put it right and will add the canal story when I reach the top end of Broad St.
 
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Can I draw everyones attention to a Carl Chin article in tonights Birmingham Mail (7th August) about Broad Street and in particular the Bingley Hall Estate
 
Hello Aiden, you can get The Birmingham Mail online but I am not sure if it is just for the news.
 
... JOSEPH SAMPSON GAMGEE ...

Excuse me, folks, for butting in on this interesting thread, but when Stitcher mentioned this name it obviously rang a bell, and I wondered if this gentleman had any connection with the Tolkien character Sam(wise) Gamgee. Sure enough, there is a connection, though quite indirect, as can be read here. The coincidence between "Sampson" and "Sam(wise)" appears to be just a complete accident. That's the second "accidental" Tolkien reference I've discovered on the BHF in the last ten minutes!
 
Excuse me, folks, for butting in on this interesting thread, but when Stitcher mentioned this name it obviously rang a bell, and I wondered if this gentleman had any connection with the Tolkien character Sam(wise) Gamgee. Sure enough, there is a connection, though quite indirect, as can be read here. The coincidence between "Sampson" and "Sam(wise)" appears to be just a complete accident. That's the second "accidental" Tolkien reference I've discovered on the BHF in the last ten minutes!

Before we get a complaint about straying too far off topic could I just mention that Gamgee House, the head office of the Birmingham Hospital Saturday Fund, is only a few hundred yards from the Two Towers that Tolkien knew as a boy
 
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