Yeah, whenever I think of Highfield Road, I think of looking along it towards the top of the Rock from Wavel I think. Or from the top of the Rock in the other direction so never from that spot. Although I used to go along Malthouse to school occasionally and had a friend who lived at the outdoor in the elbow...was a great goalie...Billy Willis seems to ring a bell for his name.
The big fine houses set up and back from the road on Highfield are still there it seems and look to have been refurbished. They were there before the working class abodes I do believe and seem to have outlasted many of them.
Malthouse is a very old lane I think and possibly was a Mill Road at one time if that was a/the windmill location. I suppose that when Washwood Heath was the coaching road to Coleshill (a mail coaching location I seem to have read)...this would have been a 'high field' with no roads. The Heath itself would presumably have been below Warren Road and the grandiose Alma Crescent might have been supposed to look out over from way back at Vauxhall Gardens. They made a start anyway. At the top of the hill on Malthouse from Highfield there is a turn into another road and I notice that the old lock-ups are still there even though much of the housing has changed.
Actually, Pye gives a really good account of his travels by coach along to Coleshill from the Bull Ring in the early 1800s. Well worth a read if not done so before. Pyes Travels is on the web.
The big fine houses set up and back from the road on Highfield are still there it seems and look to have been refurbished. They were there before the working class abodes I do believe and seem to have outlasted many of them.
Malthouse is a very old lane I think and possibly was a Mill Road at one time if that was a/the windmill location. I suppose that when Washwood Heath was the coaching road to Coleshill (a mail coaching location I seem to have read)...this would have been a 'high field' with no roads. The Heath itself would presumably have been below Warren Road and the grandiose Alma Crescent might have been supposed to look out over from way back at Vauxhall Gardens. They made a start anyway. At the top of the hill on Malthouse from Highfield there is a turn into another road and I notice that the old lock-ups are still there even though much of the housing has changed.
Actually, Pye gives a really good account of his travels by coach along to Coleshill from the Bull Ring in the early 1800s. Well worth a read if not done so before. Pyes Travels is on the web.
