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Bull Street Quaker Burial Ground

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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'.
 
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?
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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.
 
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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.
 
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.
 


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.

City Doctor Johnson Passage.jpg
 
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.
 

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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


"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. "
 
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