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Key Hill Cemetery

Key Hill Brian said:
Wendy,

According to my Church guide book (about 5+ years old now), there are 5 windows in the South Aisle - all 'bested viewed on a sunny day'.
The last (5th) is the risen Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene on the first Easter morning. It was given in memory of George and Mary Paerks(?!) of Perry Barr, and is dated December 26th 1892. so it should still be there.

Brian
Click to expand...

Thanks Brian I will have to go and take a look. I was a little surprised he had a window in a C of E church and buried in a Non Conformist cemetery?
By the way there is a chap on the Tamworth Facebook page who's company did the exhumations at Key Hill. He told me it was his partner who did the work there. The company was called Burial Ground Services and contracted to the London Necropolis company. I asked if he had any info or photo's. He said sadly no as he hasn't seen his old partner since 2000. He has posted some interesting info and photo's of a crypt he worked on in Kent.
 
Sorry Leslam, Judy,
I knew there was a map and possibly pics on here somewhere - Usually Leslam knows where better than me - younger brain!
I found it here on the Key Hill Cemetery thread, (this thread), No. 11 (Can't see a hash on my keyboard!). I'm sure there are pics as well - buried somewhere in the intervening 828 posts!!!
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=4830

Part of H & G form a wall on the inside of the semi circle. Above them is the upper level, the vaults are under the wall - subsidence has revealed some of these in the past.
The later G's and the L's are than doorways in the Catacomb wall. There is lower level, accessed originally behind the larger doorways, now sealed up.
The numbers run from left to right, if I recall correctly as you stand facing them.
I'll look and see if there are pics remaining earlier on this thread.
Brian
 
Pic 366 shows the H/G headstones on the wall - the actual vaults are below the wall - the soil are are where the 950's publics are.
Brian
 
p36 pic 526 shows the cemetery as was - the bunch of trees in the centre (now gone) are where the semi circle of grass is in front of the h/G wall. It shows the main part of the section L catacomb wall with it's doorways.
 
Key Hill Vaults - left hand edge near the sloping path behind the Petrol Stn. H14 on left, H13, H12, H11 on right - Vault Numbers are visible chalked above them but has now been washed off with rain.

post 711 page 48
 
Thanks Janice, Wendy and Brian so much for your help. I had seen the map before but have now saved it for when I visit. I'm sure all your information will be a big help in enabling me to find my ancestors!

Judy
 
I don't know about lack of respect - it seems to me just a case of greed yet again. Not wanting to pay parking is a common think in the JQ. The lower end of Pitsford Street is free, they should get to work earlier if they want free parking. I worked in the city centre for 13 years and I had to pay parking in a multi-storey, and it wasn't as cheap as the JQ parking, by a long way. Once the bollards are back up again, the problem will be resolved.
 
Don't see the point of the problem myself - The Council sealed off the Car park in Key Hill and put the land up for auction - still sitting there unused - but blocked off - including Cemetery lane - a former Public Highway and a legitimate place to park.
All Birmingham Cemeteries are free to park in if visiting, some will always be abused slightly, but if they put lockable bollards back in - no one will be able to park there - Visitors, Tourists or Volunteers trying to keep the place tidy, especially those who are elderly or disabled or have limited mobility
It's always good to have people in the cemeteries, even if only parking - helps make the place look used and free from undesirables.

Parking in a parking bay in either Cemetery cannot be considered a lack of respect - just proves what people using, living in and visiting the area have known for years - the area is chronically short of parking spaces - Pitsford is solid from quite early on, and the multi story also fills up quickly in the working week.

It is easy for the gates to be locked when the Cemetery is closed - but that would requite someone driving over from Handsworth with a key twice a day. They lock the manned Cemeteries up, why not have some one do that at KH & WL on their way to/from Handsworth?
 
i wonder if anyone of our members who may have the burial records for key hill and warstone lane would be so kind enough to check for a burial please..looking for

ALFRED DAVIS...died..11th february 1907 aged 72

thanks for any help folks

lyn
 
think i need a holiday rosie...i thought the link you gave me was just to contact someone to ask for a burial look up i did not realise that all the key hill and warstone lane records are online..how long have they been online rosie....many thanks this makes life a lot easier for us...alfred is not at either so back to the drawing board

lyn x
 
I'm sorry lyn , I should have explained, I also should have said that I checked it for Alfred!!
It's very useful being able to see the burials and inscriptions on one page. I've got so many public grave burials at Warstone and it's amazing how many are in each one!!
I'm sure I had a link for some Quinton Christ Church burials, if I can find it and post it perhaps you can move it to the best place!
rosie,
 
Lyn, here's the link, I can't find a thread for Quinton Cemetery.
Quinton Local History Society Archive

This is a link for Quinton Local History Society Archive. There's a great deal of information including burials for Christ Church an Quinton Cemetery, Alfred Davis isn't there though!
rosie.
 
thanks rosie...alfred is certainly becoming a mystery now...mind you we do love them lol

lyn
 
Wendy said:
Key_Hill_17_July_04_black_and_white_002_edit.jpg
Here's a lovely photo of Key Hill Cemetery. I am not sure of the date possibly the 1940's. I still can't believe that that wonderful chapel was demolished in the 1960's
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the photo of the chapel, by late father, Maurice Norton, told me that as a teenager around late 1930's - early 40'she would play snooker in the basement of the building, I read elsewhere it was demolished due to being unsafe. :-(
 
My husbands great grand parents lived in Icknield street, is it likely they were buried here? Where are the records or index held? Surname Hunt
 
If you go here https://bmsgh-shop.org.uk/BIRM-Cemeteries you can download a list of Key Hill, Handsworth, Witton and Warstone Lane burials. The reference numbers are for the BMSGH site only and a re not grave references although you can work out if graves were common ones. If you add a bit more info such as dob or death dates and full names people will look for you.
 
hi franny quite possible if they died in that area...they could be buried at warstone lane or key hill cemeteries...they are next to each other..burial records for both are now online here is the link to it...hope you find them please let us know

lyn
https://www.jqrt.org/
 
pjmburns said:
If you go here https://bmsgh-shop.org.uk/BIRM-Cemeteries you can download a list of Key Hill, Handsworth, Witton and Warstone Lane burials. The reference numbers are for the BMSGH site only and a re not grave references although you can work out if graves were common ones. If you add a bit more info such as dob or death dates and full names people will look for you.
Click to expand...
Found him. Many thanks, what a brilliant tool. BTW Windows 10 won't download it, but Google Chrome will.
 
Astoness said:
hi franny quite possible if they died in that area...they could be buried at warstone lane or key hill cemeteries...they are next to each other..burial records for both are now online here is the link to it...hope you find them please let us know

lyn
https://www.jqrt.org/
Click to expand...
Found him. Many thanks, what a brilliant tool. BTW Windows 10 won't download it, but Google Chrome will.
 
There is an interesting article posted on the Blog...Notes from 19th Century Birmingham, concerning "Mount Misery" a term given to the area at Key Hill and the Cemetery.

https://birminghamhistoryblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/24/mount-misery/

Donna quotes from Showell's Dictionary of 1885...

"Mount Misery.– At the close of the great war, which culminated at Waterloo, it was long before the blessings of peace brought comfort to the homes of the poor. The first effects of the sheathing of the sword was a collapse in prices of all kinds, and a general stagnation of trade, of which Birmingham made prosperous through the demands for its guns, &c., felt the full force. Bad trade was followed by bad harvests, and the commercial history of the next dozen years is but one huge chronicle of disaster, shops and mills closing fast, and poverty following faster. How to employ hundreds of able-bodied men dependent on the rates, was a continual puzzle to the Overseers, until someone, wise in his generation, hit upon the plan of paying the unfortunates to wheel sand from the bank then in front of Key Hill House up to the canal side, a distance of 1 1/2 miles, the payment being at the rate of one penny per barrow load. This fearful ‘labour test’ was continued for a long time, and when we reckon that each man would have to wheel his barrow backwards and forwards for nearly 20 miles to earn a shilling, moving more than a ton of sand in the process, we cannot wonder at the place receiving such a woeful name as Mount Misery."

I have added as a comment the reference made by Thomas Atwood MP to the Commons in 1834 which has slightly different figures.
 
Pedrocut said:
There is an interesting article posted on the Blog...Notes from 19th Century Birmingham, concerning "Mount Misery" a term given to the area at Key Hill and the Cemetery.

https://birminghamhistoryblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/24/mount-misery/

Donna quotes from Showell's Dictionary of 1885...

"Mount Misery.– At the close of the great war, which culminated at Waterloo, it was long before the blessings of peace brought comfort to the homes of the poor. The first effects of the sheathing of the sword was a collapse in prices of all kinds, and a general stagnation of trade, of which Birmingham made prosperous through the demands for its guns, &c., felt the full force. Bad trade was followed by bad harvests, and the commercial history of the next dozen years is but one huge chronicle of disaster, shops and mills closing fast, and poverty following faster. How to employ hundreds of able-bodied men dependent on the rates, was a continual puzzle to the Overseers, until someone, wise in his generation, hit upon the plan of paying the unfortunates to wheel sand from the bank then in front of Key Hill House up to the canal side, a distance of 1 1/2 miles, the payment being at the rate of one penny per barrow load. This fearful ‘labour test’ was continued for a long time, and when we reckon that each man would have to wheel his barrow backwards and forwards for nearly 20 miles to earn a shilling, moving more than a ton of sand in the process, we cannot wonder at the place receiving such a woeful name as Mount Misery."

I have added as a comment the reference made by Thomas Atwood MP to the Commons in 1834 which has slightly different figures.
Click to expand...

Key Hill House and the Quarry can be seen on the middle and right of the 1888 OS Map...

https://maps.nls.uk/view/115633215
 
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