• 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

Vaughtons Hole, Highgate

Phil - that's a brilliant answer to Lisa's query — and, with little exertion on your part. We are very lucky to have such dedicted people taking part in our network.
I've seen and copied several of the early maps and have noticed how the Rea was progressively straightened. On early 1900-vintage maps you can see the old parish and ward boundaries which we still retained after the river was diverted, as much as anything to enable building development to take place, I suspect.
The Phil Dargue documents are fascinating and growing all the time. Something else to be happy about.
Peter Walker
 
This is from a post I made on another threaad on the forum some time ago...
:angel:

..." Celebrated TV and Film actor Tony Morton's vivid recollection of his early life in Highgate with his Mother and Grandmother are profoundly moving. He has said that both he and his Auntie Ida agree that when you now stand on the steps to the West Door of St. Alban's Church and look out down the green grassy slopes of Conybere Street the view is very different. It would not be easy today to picture what this area of Highgate in Birmingham looked like, but 100 years ago, terraced houses, courts, back-to-back housing were built over a filled-in clay pit known locally as Vaughton's hole.
Housing was cramped, clustered, and claustrophobic, two up, two down for a family of 7.Courts and terraces led into a cul-de-sac of more courts and terraces..‚.. These were serviced by outside water closets or lavatories - approximately three lavatories to six families sited in out-houses built in the centre of each court adjacent to a communal wash house where a family's washing was laundered in public..."
Click to expand...
 
All interesting stuff but there is little or nothing to flesh-out the story. The earliest reference (unless anyone knows better!) to a 'Vaughton' regarded the loss of a cow in the Rea. There is an excellent old drawing of Vaughton's Hole which sometime soon I will scan in and post on this thread; the location is on a sharp bend in the Rea, just the type of feature that causes eddys in the main stream to etch-out a deeper pool.
Ted
 
Langford in "Modern Birmingham & its Institutions" does mention a legacy by a Mr Vaughton to the blue Coat school in the 1700s, but does not give any reason to associate this gentleman with the Hole.
Mike
 
Last edited:
An old 1745 painting of Vaughton's Hole at Balsall Heath. I'm afraid I don't know the artist's name.

Phil
 

Attachments

  • Balsall Heath Vaughtons Hole on the Rea painting 1745 .jpg
    Balsall Heath Vaughtons Hole on the Rea painting 1745 .jpg
    111.8 KB · Views: 34
Wow, wow and wow. Thank you so much everyone. Bill Dargue is our reading recovery teacher at school (situated ON Vaughtons Hole) but I didn't have his web address, so thank you Phil. Off to look through them all now. All I had was the Pollack brothers info, but thanks again for these gems. Regards,

Lisa x
 
Hello Pedrocut, If you are interested there is an enormous amount of info on the subject on Google. It was a popular bathing place and is also connected to the R. Rea and the moat. There is too much for me to digest because I am already very busy tidying up years of clutter.
 
Stitcher said:
Hello Pedrocut, If you are interested there is an enormous amount of info on the subject on Google. It was a popular bathing place and is also connected to the R. Rea and the moat. There is too much for me to digest because I am already very busy tidying up years of clutter.
Click to expand...

I have found an interesting case from 1849, and will post later.

If this sketch is indeed from 1831 it is a great find. I think it must show the floodgates that are mentioned in the case, and also the mill!
 
Pedrocut said:
I have found an interesting case from 1849, and will post later.

If this sketch is indeed from 1831 it is a great find. I think it must show the floodgates that are mentioned in the case, and also the mill!
Click to expand...

It is amazing how you can live in one place for 77 years and find so much stuff about it that you had never heard before.
 
A court case in 1849 concerning Sir Thomas Gough who claimed the land around Vaughton’s Hole belonged to him.

10742E67-0FB7-4C8B-8F13-6C0C2A4F1E35.jpeg
 
Note that in the above clip it says the floodgates at Vaughton’s Hole had been removed 18 years earlier (being around 1831, the dat on the sketch!)
 
CB03212D-A5CF-464B-9EE2-C389F5D91685.jpeg Showell’s Dictionary description of Vaughton’s Hole.

No wonder it was called a Hole if it was 60ft! In fisherman’s terms there used to be, and may still be, a bottomless peg on the Severn that was known as Cromwell’s Hole.
 
Vaughton’s Hole was also the name used for the area around that part of the River Rea, as this sale in 1857 shows.

5341CF78-9913-459B-8893-A8F1A11D56BC.jpeg
 
The River Rea modification to prevent flooding in the area..jpg
The River Rea modification to prevent flooding in the area. I am told that this image is from close to the bottom of Belgrave Road.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top