• 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.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Courtyards and yards of brum

Lyn,

I should have mentioned that these houses were not back-to-backs in the accepted sense, and my grandmother did have a kitchen-cum-scullery, but shared toilets - two between three families if I remember right. By the standards of many of the back to backs it was very good. Until the 1950s it still had gas lighting and the coal cellar served as an air raid shelter during the war.

Maurice
 
sospiri said:
Lyn,

I should have mentioned that these houses were not back-to-backs in the accepted sense, and my grandmother did have a kitchen-cum-scullery, but shared toilets - two between three families if I remember right. By the standards of many of the back to backs it was very good. Until the 1950s it still had gas lighting and the coal cellar served as an air raid shelter during the war.

Maurice
Click to expand...

Can you recall the layout Maurice, I was thinking about it last night, there were gardens to the right of the pathway from the roadside to the houses, my granddad had a damned great alsatian dog chained up in the top garden, at mealtimes it used to prowl round under the table brushing against our knees.
The toilets (lavatories) were opposite gd's door across the yard, I assume just a cess pit but it had a wooden board with two holes...........you could s*it side by side. :(
 
One of my aunties lived in a cottage that had a big wooden seat with two holes. One was normal size and the other was much smaller and I presume was for children.
This would have been handy for toilet training and I can't help but think there was a variation on the old saying "Those that pray together, stay together". Ok I am a sick unit !
Cheers Tim.
 
Eric,

Below I have taken the old large scale map showing the court and added a few colours and lines to indicate what I remember from all my visits there. Whilst I was born in that house, my parents had moved to Sparkhill by 1941 when I was four years old, so I don't remember much of the wartime period except going down the cellar if an air rair siren went off whilst my mother was visiting with us kids. So most of my memories are from the late 1940s/1950s.

I never ventured beyond the communal toilets so knew nothing of the other two houses in the court, I hope this is readable and that it helps.

Maurice
 

Attachments

  • BB.jpg
    BB.jpg
    177.9 KB · Views: 46
Eric,

A few more details from my late mother's writings, written when she was 79 years old, but she lived until the age of 92 and apart from being deaf, was in possession of all her faculties and had a good memory. She writes:-

There was no tap in the kitchen until 1913 or 1914. [There was a drain & a tap in the middle of the yard according to one of her sketches. Unfortunately the sketches don't add anymore to the map I have modified above].
There was no gas in the house until after her father died in 1920. Until then all cooking was done by a coal fire and lighting was by paraffin lamps.
Electricity was not installed until either 1924 or 1925.
The first time I saw the sea was in 1926 when I could pay for a holiday myself.
The rent was five shillings per week and we had a good landlord.
One particularly good year, the black hamburger grape vine bore 58 pounds of grapes, which my father sold to a local publican.
When I was young, the court was known as Barton Place.
The greenhouse was taken down by my younger brother in 1946.

She also says that it was her understanding that the four houses making up the court were originally one house and that it was the first house to be built on Sir Thomas Holte's land. How much truth there is in this I don't know. The building to the right of the entrance from Barton's Bank was at that time the business of a horse-drawn carrier. I can't remember that, but I do remember the coal merchant opposite, who had a horse and cart.

At one point my mother says that when she was a young girl about six years old, one of the neighbour's boys gave her a piggyback and fell over and broke both his legs about which she felt very guilty. Does this ring any bells with you?

Maurice
 
Thanks for that Maurice, like you I was only a boy when I knew the place, I think your map might be a bit out on the roadside end as I recall the dog was just inside the fence at the roadside and that it was in line with granddad's house window (we could see the dog from the window).

I was only eight when grandma died (1943), Christmas 1942 I recall clearly her saying "Make the best of the gifts, I won't be here next year."

I don't know when granddad moved out but he was living with his daughter in Victoria Road when he died in 1951.

I haven't heard the piggy back story before.

When I married I lived with the in-laws in Potter's Hill but never went to see the Barton's Bank house.
 
Hi Eric,

When I get a few minutes I will have a look to see if I can see any traces of Barton Place. I think the first time I saw the court on the census was 1891, but if my mother's story is true, it was probably called something else before then.

Tipping it down with rain here at the moment, so I may get a chance tonight! :-)

Maurice
 
hi maurice im sure ive seen a map somewhere with barton place on it...cant find it on this thread so i could be dreaming lol

lyn
 
Hi Lyn,

It's called Bartons Place on the 1901 Census, but lists 5 houses rather than 4. In 1891 that side of Bartons Bank wasn't even listed, just the even numbered side. In 1881 Barons Bank seems not to exist at all. I've been fairly busy today & will be again tomorrow and Monday, but I will have a more detailed search as soon as I can.

Maurice
 
Hi Mike,

I couldn't find it on the 1871, but Hunimex lists one in 1891 (piece 2431), but on closer examination this just appears to be a name for Court 1 in Barton Street, some distance away.

Maurice
 
If you send me your e-mail by IM, I will send you the scans of that and the surrounding pages
 
Hi Maurice
just read your thread with intrest regarding the name of all these bartons suchas saying barton street , barton place
As i have previsiouly stated in another thread regarding bartons bank , was it last account
my younger brother got married and lived in Bartons bank which we all know it was the old six ways aston
I do not know whether or not its the case of today that bartons bank is still there
after all those old propertys been demoed of those courts ,years later they started to rebuild another estate of moderen housing
All over the same complex they knocked down all those old shops and the picture house as well
but left the old big bank on the corner which was a nationional westminster bank for years later
still operational for many years after
so when the council rebuilt the estate and with a batch of moderen houses on the front where the old shops was standing
and on a high ground level there was a grass verge built up into a slope to get to those houses
and a pathe from victoria road side which was up behind the bank walk way to park lane which was a two way walk through
so i see with the history of all these names of the bank from 1800 to when ever , saying they was all banks,s name s
i presumed they kept it that way through to 2000 because it then known as barton bank being Nat west on the very start
of the houseing complex thats where the name came from
best wishes Alan,,,, Astonian,,,,
 
Hi Alan,

Bartons Bank was demoed many years ago and no longer exists as a street. In its place stand three hideous tower blocks to which, I understand they gave the name Bartons Bank, though I must stress that I haven't checked the name.

Maurice
 
There are hideous tower blocks everywhere Maurice. Even in gentile Torquay, over looking the harbour, there are two known by many as 'the ugly sisters'. :eek:
 
Mike,

Once again, many thanks for the 1871 scans and I can confirm that in that year Barton Place comprised four houses. The heads of household were:-
John Thompson - wrought iron hinge tool maker
David Wilcox - wrought iron hinge tool maker
James Parsons - gunmaker
Thomas Davis - gunstocker

All of these people were well before mine & Eric Gibson's time. Also the house, if orignally one unit, had been split into four sometime before early 1871. There was certainly a ladies school in Bartons Bank at that time, though I am pretty sure it had gone by the time the LONGMORE family moved in around 1903. I now need to go through those scans of Bartons Bank and see it the coal merchant was there in 1871, and after that look at previous censuses to try to ascertain when, or if, the house was split up.

Maurice
 
Last edited:
Maurice
The 1872 PO directory, which would refer to 1971, lists three firms:
John Moore, florist; Frederick William Walcot, beer retailer; and Mrs Elizabeth Lewis , coal dealer
 
Maurice, slightly off topic but we have a 'Black Hamburg' vine growing on our veranda. Roots outside but vine under cover. I find the grapes don't make very good wine due to lack of sun but we make a white wine, 'Folly', out of the leaves and soft prunings. For years I thought it was called 'Black Homburg'! Maybe it came from a cutting of your grandmother's vine - you never know.
 
Mike,

The actual names won't mean a lot because it was 80 years before my time, but, for instance, there was a coal merchant right opposite the entrance to Court 5/Barton Place. Unlikely that it changed location in such a short street, so it should be possible to match that business with later censuses and the numbers on that side of the road were even. Intriguing this as I always thought those houses were much old than they appeared. Many thanks for your help on this. I was out for part of the morning & lunch and came back to a problem with a shelf in one of the kitchen wall units, so haven't yet been able to give this the attention it deserves.

Maurice
 
Lady P,

I live on an island that has millions of vines, yet know very little about grapes, except that the young plants don't fruit before they are four years old! The only other thing I know is that dessert grapes for eating do not make good wine. In the same way that you need Seville oranges to make good marmalade, but they are not very nice to eat. So you could well be right. I suspect that my mother knew no more about grapes than I do and I merely extracted the name from her writings. I've just extracted this from the Victoriana Nursery site:-

Originating from Germany where it is known as Trollinger, Black Hamburgh found fame and favour in the UK after Lancelot 'Capability' Brown planted a vine at Hampton Court Palace in 1768. Over 230 years on the vine is now famously known as the Great Vine - and rightly so as it is now over 120 feet (36.5 metres) long and produces an annual crop of 500 to 700 bunches of grapes weighing 500 - 700 lbs (220 - 320 kg).


Often recognised as the easiest of greenhouse grapes it is a reliable and strong growing variety that produces a consistently good quality crop of delicious black dessert grapes. In Italy, where it is known as Schiava, it is used for making wines - and this is something we have done with our own crop, producing a delicate rosé wine.

So it's seems that you were both wrong and being a dessert grape, I wouldn't expect it to produce good wine. The Italians obviously think differently, but from my own experience, Italian wines are very variable. The Greek chap next door to us when he was alive, used to hold the village raki licence (not that anyone cares much about licences in this part of the world). Raki is distilled from the mash and prunings left over after the wine is made, and is a clear spirit much like schnapps. Since it doesn't have a great deal of flavour, I would have thought that you could distill it from your grapes & prunings, though you would obviously have to be a bit discrete about this in the UK! Some people here add honey and various flavourings to the raki and it's possible to turn it into quite a palatable cointreau and other liqueurs very cheaply.

Since the death of our neighbour, the vines produce very small white grapes with a pinkish hue that are just left to rot on the vines. At one time we had so many bottles of raki given to us that that we were giving them away to tradesmen that worked for us as we don't really drink the stuff. We will now probably both get rapped knuckles for taking this thread completely off topic, though we could always transfer it to the garden thread!

Maurice
 
Bartons Head, 13 Bartons Bank, Aston, Warwickshire
Birmingham pub history index

Directory of Pubs in the UK, historical public houses, Taverns, Inns, Beer Houses and Hotels in Warwickshire. The Warwickshire listing uses information from census, Trade Directories and History to add licensees, bar staff, Lodgers and Visitors.

The following entries are in this format:

Year/Publican or other Resident/Relationship to Head and or Occupation/Age/Where Born/Source.

1891/William Harper/Gun Maker & Publican/56/Birmingham, Warwickshire/Census ****
1891/Maria Harper/Wife/56/Birmingham, Warwickshire/Census
1891/Mary A Harper/Daughter, Steel Pen Maker/36/Birmingham, Warwickshire/Census
========================================
I just found this whilst looking for something else.



1892/William Harper/Beer Retailer, 13 Bartons bank, Aston park/../../Kellys Directory ****
 
Well done, Eric. Since all the four houses in our court were either addressed as Barton Place OR Court 5 OR back of 15 Bartons Bank, that puts our William Harper the beer retailer at number 13 as pretty close to the entrance to the court.

Maurice
 
hi celia so that photo was taken when you were still living in st helens passage ??

lyn
 
Astoness said:
hi celia so that photo was taken when you were still living in st helens passage ??

lyn
Click to expand...
Yes it was , My Parent's split up so we moved My Mother & Self when I was 12, My Father Married again and lived there, He had Building & Plastering Business on corner of Vittoria Street & St Helens Passage. Later he moved with family on £10 tickets to Australia.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top