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Bordesley Hall

Vivienne14

Vivienne14

Kentish Brummie Moderator
Staff member
A little about the Hall from Bill Dargue: “...... Bordesley Hall which was built c1750 by wealthy button magnate John Taylor I with c15ha of parkland. The hall was burned down in the 1791 Birmingham Riots, rebuilt but demolished 1840 when the estate was sold for housing development”.

I think the image below must have been after the Birmingham Riots. Viv.

01309911-09B0-491C-BADD-3B02EF1267FB.jpeg
 
Lyn, according to Wikipedia it was in parkland, south of the Coventry Road, in Small Heath. But don’t know exactly. There seems to be a lake in the painting. Viv.
 
This 1834 map has the second (post Riots rebuild) Hall marked on it. Looks to be roughly somewhere south of Arthur Street perhaps ? It would have been demolished a few years later. The second Hall only stood there for 40 years. Viv.

B0E6DC6A-7E53-4D11-A97E-B24BD4E85E94.jpeg
 
This was William Hutton’s account of Friday 15 July, 1791:

“My son wishing to secure our premises, purchased the favour of Rice, one of the leaders, who promised to preserve his person and property, and assured him that his men would implicitly obey him. Hearing Mr. Taylor's house was in danger, they marched to Bordesley, one mile, to save it, but found another mob had begun to rob and burn it. I could assign no more reason why they attempted Mr. Taylor's property than Mr. Ryland's. No man could cultivate peace and social harmony more. His is the art of doing good by stealth. Offence was never charged against him; but alas, he was a Dissenter. The sons of plunder, and their abettors, forgot that the prosperity of Birmingham was owing to a dissenter, father to the man whose property they were destroying. He not only supplied thousands of that class who were burning his son's house with the means of bread, but taught their directors the roads to invention, industry, commerce, and affluence; roads which no man trod before him. Nay, when the Meeting Houses were fallen, and the Church was falling, even this violent outrage itself was quelled by the vigilence of a Dissenter, Captain Polhill.

Rice and my son, being too late to render any essential service to Mr. Taylor's premises, returned to save our own.

At midnight I could see from my house the flames of Bordesley hall rise with dreadful aspect”.
 
morning viv...could you mark out what you think is arthur st on the map you posted please also could the darker shaded line running to the left of where it says HALL BORDESLEY be the river rea??..just a thought as i need to get my bearings im lost again:rolleyes::rolleyes:

lyn
 
This is all guesswork Lyn, but assuming the Hall was on a hill and looking at the modern map, Arthur Street looks to me to be about where the red mark is. Also along that road is a small green area: Sara Park. The Google Earth image shows the park more clearly. So perhaps this was once part of the parkland. But like I say, pure guesswork. Be helpful to have a description of its position. Viv.

A00F6060-15FF-4DAD-9248-33FEEAF5FE15.jpeg

8D18A113-A57C-495E-980A-F83D923BFE11.jpeg
 
thanks viv i will try and go into this a bit more later on and these little mysteries keep us busy :)

lyn
 
Apparently John Taylor created an ornamental pool with an island, a bridge and grotto on the estate, so the pool in the painting was probably the ornamental one. Viv.
 
Assuming that the Hall is the small blob slightly to the top left of the H in Hall, then it would appear to be about level with the end of Grange Road, and this would make it about the position of the red mark on the c1889 map

Map c1889 showing probable position of Bordesley Hall before destruction.jpg
 
Thanks Mike.

Development of the area was in evidence fronting the Coventry Road and across the park by March 1828. The interest in developing the area seems driven by it’s pleasant situation. Viv.

A05CA9C3-8E54-4158-9A3A-2FBB702360FE.jpeg
 
mike any idea what that curved line is to the left of your red blob..it also seems evident in vivs older map

lyn
 
The way it continues, I would guess it is where a stream was at the time, or was at sometime before.
 
Maybe it was a stream from Deritend Brook - seems to have fed two fish pools: Bordesley and Pool Dam at Hockley. Although they seem quite a distance from each other. Viv.

D84CACB0-E84F-4F08-B354-211F25798F67.jpeg
 
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