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Plague in Birmingham

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colinwilliams1

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Talking of the plague .It must have hit Birmingham at some place.

As Aston is one of the oldest area,s it is likely to have been hit.

But I cant remember there being any area designated for the burials.

In Norwich there an area called TOMBLAND which is where the plague pits are.

Litchfield as we know means "field of death" but that was a Roman slaughter of locals I think.

Does anyone know of a designated area where plague victims would have been buried.
 
I'm sure I've read something, somewhere about plague burials in Birmingham. Of the top of my head, the area around the Bullring (St Martin's Church) rings a bell. I'll have to have a sort around. :)
 
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St Martins would have been the centre of brum at the time, the manor house being right next door near to where MOAT RD is now would you believe , If you at the road plan around there you can see where the manor would have been ie where the markets are now.

So on the basis that Brum was there, the plague must have hit there.

Aston however would have been seperate so should have its own plague pits.

Probably need to go into some books to find out.

I have to say I cannot remember having read about the plague but I cant see why we should have missed out.
 
Well folks, as promised, here it is:

From William Dargue’s History of Birmingham on your Doorstep:

The Great Plague 1665
The plague was believed by Birmingham’s first historian William Hutton to have come to Birmingham in a box of clothes by carrier’s cart from London. The carrier stayed at the White Hart Inn which stood until the 18th century on B5 Digbeth between Park Street and Allison Street. It spread rapidly in the densely built-up town. Plague houses would have been marked with a red cross and victims were buried outside the town on wasteland at Ladywood Green between B16 Ladywood Middleway and St Vincent St West, later known as the Pest Ground or Pest Heath. When the site was developed for housing in the mid-19th century no record of burials was reported.
However, McKenna 1992 finds no evidence of a sudden increase in death rate in the parish registers and from county records believes that the route of the 1665 plague followed Watling Street and bypassed Birmingham and Coventry. Hutton’s account may be a memory of one of many earlier outbreaks; there were plagues in 1631 and 1637, for instance.

The Irony is, I once lived in a flat that must have been built on that pit in Ladywood. :?
 
The ladywood outbreak makes sense as that was probably the route of an old roman road. Icknield st being the site of a roman fort.
My guess is that the road continues over towards Harborne where there is a roman garrison at Metchley (next to the QE hospital) and down to the Bristol Rd which seems to follow a Roman Route.

Because the A5 was other main road most traffic would have come that way and the icknield route would have been a smaller road.

There does not seem to be any evidence in the road names around ladywood middleway that I can see of the site of plague burials. Which is unusual.
I am sure I read that the plaugue bug lasts for 1000 years so it must still be down there .. very deep i hope .
 
With regard to Aston plague in 1300,s .If we knew where the heart of aston was at that time we could probably locate where the plague pits would have been .

I might be evident again in road names or area names .

Sometimes if they use old english we may not recognise them for what they are .
 
Colin,
As I understand it, the plague of 1665 started in Digbeth and spread thoughout the city. Ladywood was the chosen burial site because it was outside the city boundary. This would probably account for there being no obvious reference to it - they wanted to keep it under wraps. They were perhaps wary that I would refuse to live there, had I known
 
Paul,

You are probably right !
I noted in the explantion above that it was refred to as Pest Heath .

I would guess that is "pestilance" ie ref the four horseman of the apocalipse " which is what it must have felt like .

It does worry one a bit that Edgbaston Ressa is not far away.

Anyway the roman road I was referring to was the SALTWAY goes thro Droitwich "wich" being the old word for salt ,then off to Bristol.

I think if you were living in the flats there you would be well away from any danger.

Tried to find some more rferences to the 1300, plague at aston to see where they might have buried dead on the history site here but there wasn,t any written notes.
I think some old maps are the route to identifying if there were any specific place for burying plague victims .

And I also noted the the Villa ground is built on the site of a medieval fish pond.

Its great here innit .

Colin
 
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The aston population is on this site somewhere but as it was a village there may not be any special burial.
I didnt know that the pits were just for mass graves I thought they were specific because the bodies needed to be deeper.
 
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