Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history.
While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.
A view of the ford at Sarehole. In the instance (left) is the railway under construction. Would this be the London & Midland Railway? As usual the boys are entranced by the photographer but some have detected the cameraman has another important feature on his mind - the railway. Viv.
This is actually a little way from the Mill I believe and part of my 'playground' as a Kid. It would have been at the bottom of Brook Lane before it was re-aligned.
Open Day today. It was free. I went for half an hour. Glad to see it fully restored. Photos later.
Lots of Tolkien references / exhibitions (The Hobbit and LOTR in particular).
I have been helping a writer in America who is interested in the house that J. R. R. Tolkien lived in in Wake Green Road (5 Gracewell, now 264 Wake Green Road). She wanted to know who actually owned the property. The only records that I could find in Birmingham Library was the Poor and General District rate assessment book 1901 View attachment Rate Assessment.docfor Wake Green Road. Unfortunately, it does not show house numbers/names, only what I can assume are schedule numbers. Does anybody know how the system worked? Is there anyway of determining from the schedule numbering the corresponding house numbers?
You have to ask to see the Rates Books. I have done this for a property my family lived in, just to check on the year they moved there. It gives the tenant, the rateable value and the owner. I believe they may have now been digitised - it's Archives you want, at least that's where the books were. Shortie
Hi Gensec: According to several references about JJR Tolkien's life at 264 Wake Green Road. The house was initially owned by a wealthy
Birmingham solicitor named A.H. Foster. Mr. Foster had the house built for his servants. He and his family were living close by in a much larger residence. Mr. Foster at some point purchased Sarehole Mill and Meadow from some people in Yardley who owned it and then bequeathed it to the City of Birmingham..
As Shortie suggests for further information you would have to see the Rates Books.