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Before Corporation Street

O

O.C.

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Amended Info.
Two Photographs of a Garden situated on a map in the middle of Corporation St and James Watt Queensway (Middle of that Triangle )
The other photograph is Brussels Court Steelhouse lane
Bottom Photograph
Shows the lower end of New Street before the breakthrough into Corporation Street
The Birmingham Post and Cornish's Bookshop are on the extreme left
The photographs have been replaced, after being lost, by identical photographs

Garden on site now in middle of corporation st.james watt kingsway.jpg Garden on site now in middle of corporation st.james watt kingsway2.jpg brussels court.steelhouse lane.jpg new street Before%20Corporation%20St.jpg
 
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The first picture I understand is around the mid to late 1800's
 
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Sound as a trout.... heres one of the Gullet
The photo below was associated with this thread, but not certain it was in this post
gullet by burgoyne, back to anchor.jpg
 
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I believe the Gullet to have be in Stafford Street and was cleared in the late 1870's as part of the slum clearance.
 
I've done a quick overlay showing roughly the alignment of Corporation Street, and also Albert Street, Martineau St and James Watt Street, which also gives the rough dates they were opened.
Albert St was the first Victorian improvement, the first part being built by the governors o King Edwards School on their land between Moor Street and Park Street, on the understanding that the Street Commissioners would extend it to Dale End, to provide better access to the new Railway Station at Curzon Street. The Commissioners chickened out and decided to widen Carrs Lane a bit instead, but had to pay the School Governors £10 023 compensation after years of wrangling. Then in 1862 they built it after all.
Corporation Street was a much more grandiose affair, built in phases. The first part was a cul-de-sac from New Street as far as Little Cannon Street, opened in 1878. It reached Cherry Street in 1879, Bull Street in August 1881, and the Old Square in 1882. There is a map from that time which shows Corporation Street, but does not show Martineau St or James Watt Street, and another which shows Martineau Street as an extension of Albert Street, and James Watt Street unnamed. But both names appear in the 1890 Kelly's Directory, with the premises fronting on them.
Peter
The original overlay was lost, but I am pretty sure this is it

Corp%20St%20overlay.jpg
 
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The most noturious Gullet (which meant narrow lane) appeared in the Graphic 1875 and it was cleared for the development of Corporation Street. St Marys Ward had the largest number of Gullets
 
Harbourne, you mean before cameras were invented? Gullets all over Brum
 
:-[ :D OK Cromwell, you got me. I should've looked at the earlier postings (re Before Corporation Street), which I have now done and all my questions have been answered. Thanks for that.

As regards old images, I just wondered if anyone knows where I can get more pictures from the same era as the 'Before Corporation Street' pics or earlier, even if they are only sketches, or watercolours. I have managed to get some from the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery site, but I want more, I can't get enough, you see! :laugh:

Thanks for your help.

Harborne
 
Harbourne, You can do what most of us do, get them from old books in these little back street bookshops, that is how I have built up a large collection same goes for old newspapers
 
There have been several alleyways known as the Gullet. The 1855 directory lists two, one off Thomas Street, Dale End, and the other off Fordrough St, Navigation St. Neither are listed in later directories, but another appears between Cheapside and Bradford St next to the slaughter house. However one map produced at the time that Lichfield Street was being widened and rebuilt as Corporation Street, in about 1883, shows the new layout in the back streets, although it does not show the new James Watt Street and Martineau Street. It shows the long alleyway at the rear of properties on the west side of Stafford Street as 'The Gullet'. This original map was shown in Murray's Warwickshire map of 1899 [!], and was reproduced in Victor Skipp's excellent "Making of Victorian Birmingham"
The overlay below shows my interpretation of the new buildings connected with the Corporation Street extension.
Peter
The original map was lost in a crash, but I am pretty sure this copy was it

Area%20of%20the%20Gullet.jpg
 
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This is the Gullet (one of many) as it appeared in The Graphic in 1876 which was cleared for the development of Corporation St.
The original drawing was lost in a crash, but I have replaced with what I think was probably the same drawing

the%20gullet.jpg
 
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Thanks Peter for the diagram of The Gullet which also shows London Prentice Street - this is where my g.grandparents lived at the time of the 1881 census with seven children.

This is a quote from a newspaper article by Carl Chinn re the making of Corporation Street.

"One of them was The Gullett. Short and narrow, it became infamous and was supposedly the domain of ruffians and villans. In reality, its people were amongst the poorest in the city and were mostly widows, children and the elderly. Another was London Prentice Street, which was decalimed as a "nasty, dirty, stinking thoroughfare".
But it was also the home of the poorest, many of whom were migrants from the west of Ireland".
 
Thank you for the photo and map. :)

I had never heard of the Gullet, I don't think any of them would have been missed when they were pulled down. But again a bit of our history gone forever.
 
This photo shows the Gullet 1837. (but not 1837 as photography was not practised then)
Thomas Augustine Finigan a preacher came to work at the Town Hall Mission in 1837 here is an extract for one day in his diary
Monday July 31st
I spent seven hours in what is called the Gullet ,and what I can see of this wretched place it would give work to a faithful missionary for many weeks, I find openings, dark passages and back courts in this Gullet as there is in the gullet of a shark, In one of them I entered a house. I saw six females at card playing and all of them almost in a state of nudity, Oh how serious and how responsible is the work of a town missionary

Gullet NOT 1837!!.jpg
 
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This photo shows the Gullet which if it were placed on a map it would run right through the Law Courts
This is the notorious Gullet. This is the Southern entrance on the sharp left is the Anchor Tavern, Mary Carlass was the licensee.

Court report from the Birmingham Daily Mail
James Mackenzie 20 years, hawker of Thomas St charged with assaulting Katherine Lamb, button maker of New Canal St and stealing a purse containing 3s 3p
The prisoner assaulted the woman knocking her down in the street, and tore the pocket out of her dress, stealing the purse he ran away. He was committed to the Assizes
This photo was associated with this thread, but am not sure if it was with this post
Gullet notorious through law courts.jpg

 
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Two photos taken inside the Gullet shown above
The photographs were lost, but I have replaced with two that I am pretty certain were the same photographs

Inside%20the notorious Gullet.jpg Inside%20the notorious Gullet2.jpg
 
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The photo of the Gullet with the wagon on the left looks like the same place as the earlier graphic. If this is so it does not seem as decrepid as the first impression.
 
We now can only try and work things out as we see them with the aid of the PC and I have a feeling that the gullets mentioned are just two but that is only my theory
 
Heres another old un for ya. ( no not you Alf ) >:D
This photo was associated with this thread, but not sure if it was in this particular post
Gullet notorious through law courts2.jpg
 
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I threatened last night to come back and quibble about the excellent photos of the Gullet p-rovided by Cromwell (for which many thanks, of course). It is the second pic of the end of the Gullet which can't be right. It certainly is a long narrow alleyway with a bollard to keep carts out, and the street on the right doesn't look like Stafford St as shown in other pics. Most important, the buildings either side are quite different from the other view - Henry Hart's Egg shop on the left is clearly somewhere else. I see there was a Henry Hart, grocer & provision dealer, at 47 Vauxhall Road in White's 1873 directory, and another of the same name was a cow keeper at Gladstone Place, Clifford Street at that time.
By the way, the first primitive photos were made in the later 1840s, and it wasn't really until the late 1850s that this kind of record photo would have been taken.
Never mind, it's good to see the pictures - perhaps someone else can locate where Henry Hart was.
By the way, there's a bit about the Hope & Anchor beerhouse shown in the other pics with the same drawing on pages 61 - 62 of 'Central Birmingham Pubs', by Joseph McKenna, published this year by Tempus. This is a superb little book, with a wealth of information, but you can only read a page at a time. t £12.99 it's very good value, much recommended.
Peter
 
There's a Gullet that runs pretty near to the side of my house (c.1907), linking Stockwell and Windermere Roads. So they weren't unique to the old inner city; we had them in the posher areas as well. We even have the bollards to stop through traffic - not carts these days but stolen BMWs with police cars in pursuit.
 
Peter There were a number of Gullets in the area and the bollards were at one end only to stop it being uesd as a rat run but people could still take carts in at the one end to get goods etc. and one other strange thing is Gullets were not named
 
Peter Excluding Postie's Pic, the last two photos were taken in the Gullet that ran between Lichfield St and Stafford St which follows the line of James Watt Queensway between Masshouse Circus and Lancaster Circus the Gullet ended were the Scout shop (still is or used to be) overlooks Lancaster Circus
Those two photo's of the Court are now under the main entrance ot the Birmingham Central Methodist Church and the one previous would be under the car park of the Queen Elizabeth Courts
 
Peter, James Burgoyne took all the pictures and they can be dated roughly as on a pic I will put on later is a bill poster arranging a sale of building material Oct 21st 1881
 
Wow that's a good one Postie.  What was the round chimney-like thing next to the houses, do you know?

I'm on about the pic of Birmingham from Bradford Street... ;D



ChrisB
 
Harborne, the round brick onion-shaped structures were kilns, usually for bricks or pottery. There used to be a lot in the Potteries of course, and were quite common at one time. I think there's at least one preserved just north of Stourbridge by the canal.
Peter
 
According to "Birmingham Street Names compiled by Joseph McKenna":
"The Gullet, formerly The Ditch, ran parallel to Stafford Street. By the middle of the 19th century the Gullet had developed a reputation of lawlessness. It was destroyed by Chamberlin's improvement scheme of the 1880's".
:flower: :cat:
 
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