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Primrose Hill - Aston

G

Gobby

Guest
I cannot quite read an address on the census but I believe its Primrose Hill in Aston - I have family living there from 1839 to 1861+ (number 31 on the 1861 census - John and Rebecca REEVES.)

Can anybody tell me where Primrose Hill was located please - a map would be ideal - I cannot see it on the 1960 map I got from the forum pages.

Thanks
Gobby
 
Primrose Hill was later called Nechells in the Rupert St Cromwell St Area
 
Primrose Hill

Thanks Cromwell

So are we saying that Primrose Hill was an area and not a street as we know it ?

I have found Cromwell street on the 1864 (Cornish) map - Rupert street is not on there yet - although you can see where the houses at the back of Cromwell street are going to become Rupert street.

I can also make out the area that becomes Proctor street on the 1864 map too - they lived there from 1876. The 1871 census still shows them living at Primrose Hill though - says Duddeston Cum Nechells.

Gobby
???
 
Do you know when that area was developed?

ie Railway - Gas Works and the roads that cross it?

Thanks
Gobby
 
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Article below
is courtesy of Carl Chinn who wrote it for the Birmingham Mail
Its Hard to think of greenery in the old Nechells dominated as it was by the gasometers of Nechells Place and Windsor Street, marked out by railway lines, overlaid by back to backs, and darkened by factories and workshops billowing out smoke and pollution
Yet green there had been.
The first notice of the actual name Nechells is in a deed from 1339 whereby William Holdon granted lands in Echeles to Henry son of Robert Jordan of Erdyngton.
Joe McKenna, who has written a cracking book on Birmingham's place names, feels that the meaning of the name is open to speculation - although it might derive from the Old English 'ecels', signifying cleared land added to an existing farm.
His hunch is supported by compelling evidence from the place-name expert Kenneth Cameron. He explains that originally Nechells was known as 'atten_ Eccheles', the land added to a village.
As time went, in a process called metanalysis, the 'n' from 'atten' was taken as belonging to Eccheles, thus giving atte Neccheles.
In the following years, the word 'atte' was dropped completely. It is -likely that this linguistic change occurred in the Middle English period, which would suggest that it took place some time in the 12th century. This dating is given validity by the first use of the word in 1339. Interestingly, Geoff Bryant and other people have told me that older Nechells folk used to pronounce the name as Netchells.
The roots of the name would suggest that this was the original way in which the word was spoken. From its earliest appearance, the manor of Nechells was always linked with the manor of Duddeston. However, there is no evidence of a village in Duddeston and as both places lay in the parish of Aston, it would seem that Nechells may have been the land added to Aston village.
In his history of Warwickshire, William Dugdale wrote there had been a 'pretty village' in Nechells itself, but again there is no corroboration for such an assertion. The existence of a village does seem most unlikely. Certainly the lack of population locally is emphasised by Tomlinson's Map.
This indicated less than a handful of houses and gardens, including those of someone called Bott on Netchells Green, and close to the future High Park Street. The place name green comes from Anglo-Saxon grene. It could mean either a grassy place or a village green, as in The Green at Kings Norton. Given that there was no village locally, it must be that Nechells Green was a grassy place.
However, it was a focal point in the 18th century and its importance as a central location in Nechells increased when the district was built up from the mid-1850s.
Nechells Green is the most-eye-drawing feature of Tomlinson's Map. It consisted of two large pieces of land that lay between fields and which were separated by a route that headed down towards Aston and would become known as Thimblemill Lane, after a mill where thimbles were made.
This was an important lane as it led toward Aston Parish Church, where Nechells and Duddeston folk had to Worship by law.
Also part of the Green was a small triangle of land bounded by two other routes. The first was a path that split into two at the apex of the triangle. It went down hill from Nechells Green, as it was given on the map, and was indicated as the road towards Perry Barr. This was to become Rocky Lane, which later ended at Aston Cross.
The other way that made the triangle headed into Duddeston and is still with us as Bloomsbury Street and Vauxhall Road. It went on to just below Lower Gorsty Green. This later disappeared as a name, although its location survived until the twentieth century in the little triangle of land in between AB Row, Prospect Row and Belmont Row. Upper Gorsty Green has carried on as Gosta Green.
Belmont Row itself would run into Lawley Street, again shown as a track on Tomlinson's Map and which after crossing the River Rea would split in two to go to Small Heath and Camp Hill.
As for the track that became Bloomsbury Street this was joined by another route that led to Saltley Bridge over the Rea, and which later emerged as Saltley Road and Saltley Viaduct; and further on down by- one other pathway that made for Duddeston Mill - hence becoming Duddeston Mill Road.
It is remarkable that the ancient routes coming from Nechells Green were not obliterated by either the urbanisation of Nechells or by its wide-scale redevelopment in the 1950s and 1960s. It is also remarkable that the name of Nechells Green was not wiped out.
From 1838, when it became part of Birmingham, Nechells was a. spur of the town enveloped by rural Aston and Saltley.
Located distantly from the centre of the expanding Bruin, the area was developed only from the mid-19th century. The first streets to be cut were those between Great Lister Street and Nechel& Green - but, as with other parts of Birmingham, the countryside was not banished immediately.
These streets below the Green were cleared of their housing and. reformed in the post-war redevelopment of our city. High -: flats and maisonettes came to"' dominate the sky line. With parts of Duddeston, the neighbourhood has now been refashioned once more
 
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From several burial records I have the address as Primrose Hill. I have tried google searches and old maps but can't locate where it was. When these children were baptised or buried it was either at St Paul's or St Matthew's, Duddeston. Can anyone please help?

Regards Chris
 
I have located Coleman Street, Duddeston on a map in the 1890s. It runs parallel to Heneage Street and Great Lister Street but I cannot find Primrose Hill at the moment.

Janice
 
The map (1834 ) below shows primrose hill. The small original gasworks mentioned by Dargue was at the junction of Richard & Upper Windsor St, as can be seen from the 1854 map. In 1862, according to the papers of the time, the area of the Hill was the haunt of youths who caused trouble and robbed.
 

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That all fits nicely with the 1851 census which includes Richard Street and Canalside in the same area as Primrose Hill.

Janice
 
It's funny but coming out of Brum along this way, you don't get an impression of there being a hill at all. It all seems so flat after Lister Street and Dartmouth. Richard St remains pretty much as of old but the gas holders have gone. Coming the other way though you can see the hill and the rise coming up Nechells Place...Primrose being to the left of there on the way up. I suspect that the area between the Rea and Hockley Brook comprised the hill. Rather more than the area of the name on the map. The old map is nice to have and shows the area before any rail roads. You can see the defining roads that were there then...Nechells Place with it's triangular island at the bottom...Washwood Heath Rd and Alum Rock and Highfield Rd linking the two. Aston Church Rd and Arley Rd were there then. No sign of Metro Camel at The Gate and the toll gate seemed to be before todays Crawford (Mill Lane in days of old)on the way out of Brum. Lots of small industry has...gone now.... East of Drews Lane is levelled. The canals seem to be becoming more beautiful and with the greening of the landscape; it all might come together as a nice place to live. Supposing that you can find something to do.
 
Rupert

The area marked Primrose Hill on Mike's map runs downhill naturally toward the Rea Valley at the edge of Saltley as it does from all other directions.
 
Well, if you have pushed a handcart east on Great Lister St. I think you would say that it certainly would not run away with you for the most part. Certainly the terrain decline starts as a gradual slope as you approach Saltley Viaduct past the library but until that point there is no hill anywhere. The hill is more like a flat plateau where it's name is on the map and coming from the town you would have had no hill to purvey at all...except for the little hill in Dartmouth Street where it goes over the canal bridge...past the motorcycle shop.
 
Well, if you have pushed a handcart east on Great Lister St. I think you would say that it certainly would not run away with you for the most part. Certainly the terrain decline starts as a gradual slope as you approach Saltley Viaduct past the library but until that point there is no hill anywhere. The hill is more like a flat plateau where it's name is on the map and coming from the town you would have had no hill to purvey at all...except for the little hill in Dartmouth Street where it goes over the canal bridge...past the motorcycle shop.
just read these post very interesting stuff thanks. the only real hill i come across was pushing a barrow of coal up nechells place. when i think about it. there was not many hills. a few inclines. around aston/nechells. primrose hill sounds better than gas works:laughing::laughing:
 
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