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Great Barr Cottage

The problem I have with the Booth Lane location is about the telephone poles. In my childhood I never saw 10 bar telephone poles on the Queslett Rd. I did see similar on the Kingstanding Rd and below is a pic of some on the Kingstanding Rd in 1920 (before my time !) but they are 14 bar, the ones in the mystery pic are 10 bar.
kingstanding1920.jpg
image from the Birmingham Library collection
 
lol phil during my childhood i most likely would not have even noticed the tele poles never mind count the bars on them....just diverting slightly i have 2 photos of beeches road both taken in 1936 but in different spots....one photo show a tele pole with 6 bars and in the other photo the pole has 4 bars

lyn
 
oldMohawk said:
The problem I have with the Booth Lane location is about the telephone poles. In my childhood I never saw 10 bar telephone poles on the Queslett Rd. I did see similar on the Kingstanding Rd and below is a pic of some on the Kingstanding Rd in 1920 (before my time !) but they are 14 bar, the ones in the mystery pic are 10 bar.
View attachment 121602
image from the Birmingham Library collection
Click to expand...

At the time of the picture I don’t think there would be many underground cables. The number of wires on the pole may suggest that it was either close to the Telephone Exchange, or on a main route?
 
For the record...”The first Great Barr exchange opened around 1906 at 1 Warwick Cottages, Newton Road.”
 
Now I think that's progress Pedro. I think we should focus around Newton Road. As you and Phil point out, the number of wires on the telephone poles suggest many using the service. So I think we're looking for a hamlet/village. There's also a pub - niw the Malt Shovel nearby. I think there were many more cottages around the Asbury Cottage. So think that's probably near the location of our cottage. Our photo's unlikely to be the Asbury Cottage, but may have been part of a group. I think they're the same style, built at exactly the same time. Is there a cluster of cottages and a pub/inn (and possibly a chapel) near the Asbury Cottage/Newton around 1900- 1920 on old maps ?

And coincidentally there's a modern triangular warning sign outside the Asbury Cottage on Streetview ! Today it warns of traffic lights ahead. (See image attached). Viv.

Think we need a separate thread for this discussion. Shall move posts to a new thread.
 

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I think Warwick Cottage is on the corner of Newton Rd and Birmingham Rd (No 1) as seen in the forum pic below. The location is only 100 yds from where the present Great Barr Exchange building now is.
Scott_Arms_Newton_Rd.jpg

from https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/for...ingham-by-post-card.15768/page-44#post-181826
 
And ..........
All that's left of Asbury Cottage/cottages is this (red circle). It originally formed part of a larger group. Just for info. Viv.

image.jpeg
 
thanks viv it said in the link pedro posted that there was another cottage attached to astbury cottage and that the council had to decide which one would be demolished..they kept the astbury one....i pass it many times but never thought we would be talking about it...

phils last photo shows the original scott arms pub...how its all changed round there...

overlay map here for newton road...for those who do not know of this useful tool just move the blue dot from left to right to see what is there today and how it looks many years ago

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=52.5457&lon=-1.9447&layers=1&b=1
 
Yes Lyn. The cottage adjoining Asbury Cottage must have come out onto what is now the (wider ?) Newton Road. I also notice there's a passageway behind the Cottage. Viv.
 
Pedro - so there are records of every telegraph pole, even down to the species of tree ! Good old GPO. Viv.
 
This is my theory .... The original image was on the Newton Road, very close to Asbury Cottage(s). Viv

image.jpeg
 
Vivienne14 said:
Yes Lyn. The cottage adjoining Asbury Cottage must have come out onto what is now the (wider ?) Newton Road. I also notice there's a passageway behind the Cottage. Viv.[/QUOTe

yes i see that viv.....its a total mystery...good fun though...not sure about it being on the newton road because if that is a chapel or church near the unknown cottage we need to find it on a map...onward and upward
Click to expand...
 
viv just read where you think the cottage was...phils pic shows it on the right and its only a few paces from a left and right turn so where do you think the turning is can you mark it out on a map......not yet convinced its on the newton road ....also reposting the photo as i have to look at it from that angle

great barr unknown.jpg
 
This is what I was thinking Lyn. In the second photo (Streetview) 'our' cottage would be to the bottom right on the Newton Road and and Newton Road continues to bear off to the right - as in top image. Remember, the Newton Road would have been much narrower, so the left-hand side would have looked much different. There is today another road off to the left (Bowstoke Road) which might originally have joined Newton Road at that point to form the forked roads in the first photo. Viv.
image.jpeg
 
The OS 25 inch Map shows the pavements at least from 1901, and as OldM pointed out, there is a only one on this Lane. May help as a process of elimination!
 
Having a closer look at the mystery pic I can now see what I thought was a row of cottages is actually one house. The 'chapel'/'gate house'/'lodge' next to it looks disused even back in the times when the pic was taken. I've had a search on old maps along the Newton Rd and Queslett Rd but found nothing that matches the road layout or buildings. I did see the following
There were originally six lodges associated with the Great Barr Hall Estate—three were demolished long ago. They all stood at the head of carriageways leading to Great Barr Hall. The occupants were estate employees who, with their spouses, were expected to act as gatekeepers
Click to expand...
 
i agree phil and its definately one cottage with nothing attached to it as you can clearly see at least one could be 2 windows on the side of the building..still ploughing through my photos albums....

lyn
 
I've studied this again this afternoon and I think this is the cluster of buildings containing Bishop Asbury's Cottage and "our" cottage.
image.jpeg

I thought in post #46 that "our cottage" was closer to the Malt Shovel pub on the Newton Rd (between it and the old cottage) but it's further back I.e where the roadwork equipment (compressor? Oil drums etc) are in the 1964 black & white pic on this post below.
image.jpeg

This is the road widening development in 1964. In this photo you're looking down Newton Road - the area immediatly in front is where our cottage would have been. The road widening took up "our" cottage space. The red dot is the edge of Bishop Asbury's Cottage - but only the bit we still see today, it was originally longer.
image.jpegimage.jpeg


From the 1964 road widening photo you can see a road off to the left. Given the position of the cottage once on the Newton Road, you can see that in our original photo the road to the right would have looked like a 'branch' road, whereas in fact it was a continuation of the Newton Road.

I believe the 'chapel'/'lodge' speculated about in our earlier discussion was in fact the Bishop's Cottage.

Viv.
 
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There's one more separate point I want to record, and that's about which cottage was actually the Bishops ? We know there was speculation about whether the correct cottage had been demolished. But if it was in the way of a road widening scheme, I doubt they'd have listened to preserving it. So it's anybody's guess if the Bishop's cottage was demolished. Viv.
 
Great Barr and its environs is not an area I know much about. However I have watched this interesting thread. The following link makes interesting reading.
I have seen it mentioned that Asbury served his apprenticeship as a blacksmith in the Black Country. Regarding the telephone cross arms it has crossed my mind that given the date difference between that of the photo and the memories of some posters it could be the case that subsequent arms were added to the ten at a later date. There are some facts about the cottage part demolition in the link.
https://greatbarr.wordpress.com/amenities/asburys-cottage/
 
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Bishop Asbury's cottage is on a steep part of the Newton Rd but looking again at the original pic the road is flat and appears to end at a road which crosses the pic from left to right. The pavement on the left and the grass verge on the right also end at the other road. A minor difference is that the eave or 'immediately under the gutter' brickwork in the second pic post#50 does not match the eave of the cottage in the original pic. However, I have not found any alternative at present ...:)
Newton Rd steep hill.
Newton.JPG
 
A couple of aerial views of Newton Rd with Bishop Asbury's cottage marked red dots. The date of these pics is 1947.
2NewtonRd1947.JPG
Newton1947.JPG
 
Agree Phil it does. But the building(s) that was demolished was built up. It would have protruded out across the road in the 1964 image (top, black arrow). The second image shows that part which I believe was demolished.

Then "Our " cottage would have been relatively flatter ground - as shown in the 1964 photo - green arrow.

Additionally this whole part of Newton Road was redeveloped to make way for the wider road and a subway. So expect grass verges marking road edges etc completely disappeared. Viv.

image.jpeg
 
Not looked extensively, but the only religious references to Great Barr appear for the Parish Church, and the Methodist Chapel in Sundial Lane. Normally even the smallest Methodist establishment gets a mention as it would be on a preaching circuit.
 
This is a nice challenge. I may not have cracked the exact layout of the cottages (looking at Phil's 1940s aeriel views) but still feel fairly certain "our" cottage is somehow connected to the Bishop's cottage. (Not one to give up).

For info. From "On the trail of John Wesley", by J K Cheetham. Viv.
image.jpeg
 
Radiorails said:
Great Barr and its environs is not an area I know much about. However I have watched this interesting thread. The following link makes interesting reading.
I have seen it mentioned that Asbury served his apprenticeship as a blacksmith in the Black Country. Regarding the telephone cross arms it has crossed my mind that given the date difference between that of the photo and the memories of some posters it could be the case that subsequent arms were added to the ten at a later date. There is some facts about the cottage demolition in the link.
https://greatbarr.wordpress.com/amenities/asburys-cottage/
Click to expand...
As a young child I used to look up at the telephone wires on the 14 bar poles on the Kingstanding road and wonder how the birds missed the 56 closely spaced wires on them. The 10 bar poles by the 'mystery' cottage carried 40 wires. I suppose when they fixed the bars on the poles they started at the top and added ones lower down. We need a map of the old telephone trunk lines in the Midlands ....:)
 
oldMohawk said:
As a young child I used to look up at the telephone wires on the 14 bar poles on the Kingstanding road and wonder how the birds missed the 56 closely spaced wires on them. The 10 bar poles by the 'mystery' cottage carried 40 wires. I suppose when they fixed the bars on the poles they started at the top and added ones lower down. We need a map of the old telephone trunk lines in the Midlands ....:)
Click to expand...

Yes the poles could probably carry lines the connections between the trunk exchanges. There are a few old external engineers that use the Forum.

I think Northern and Erdington were trunk exchanges, but Great Barr would be quite small at the time. What do we estimate the date of the picture?
 
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