Peter Walker
gone but not forgotten
There are not all that many good Victorian street maps of Brum available to surfers but, while researching for an article on the growth of the city's road system, I opened the map on my copy of the Archive CD Books [sadly no longer in business] version of the 1879 Kelly's Directory. The original must have been very creased and torn, and the CD image needed some surgery to get any sense out of it, but it did fill a big gap in my knowledge, and enabled me to draw the map below.
A number of important building projects were under way in 1879 - the first part of Chamberlain's new Corporation Street scheme was opened that year, as was the Council House (although the Kelly's map shows it as the Law Courts - an earlier proposal). Work must have started on the extension of Midland Railway with new connections partly in tunnel and partly in cuttings, the first part of the new Station Street is shown on Kelly's list of streets, although there are no properties on it listed. The Midland Railway's new Central Goods Depot opened two years after the passenger station, also taking over a lot of properties and streets west of Suffolk Street. Also imminent were the Corporation's new John Bright Street, and clearing up the last of the Inkleys. which had been a very insanitary area.
My map is basically a tracing of the Kelly's 1879 map superimposed with recent and ongoing later road, railway and public building works, but I have added a few earlier buildings with their opening dates.
I have started my next project, which superimposes the new railways and stations at New Street and Snow Hill opened in the 1850s on the SDUK 1839 map. More of that anon
Peter
A number of important building projects were under way in 1879 - the first part of Chamberlain's new Corporation Street scheme was opened that year, as was the Council House (although the Kelly's map shows it as the Law Courts - an earlier proposal). Work must have started on the extension of Midland Railway with new connections partly in tunnel and partly in cuttings, the first part of the new Station Street is shown on Kelly's list of streets, although there are no properties on it listed. The Midland Railway's new Central Goods Depot opened two years after the passenger station, also taking over a lot of properties and streets west of Suffolk Street. Also imminent were the Corporation's new John Bright Street, and clearing up the last of the Inkleys. which had been a very insanitary area.
My map is basically a tracing of the Kelly's 1879 map superimposed with recent and ongoing later road, railway and public building works, but I have added a few earlier buildings with their opening dates.
I have started my next project, which superimposes the new railways and stations at New Street and Snow Hill opened in the 1850s on the SDUK 1839 map. More of that anon
Peter
