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Victoria Square - uncovering an old road

Yes, I think too it may be a boundary of sorts.

I notice that the archeologist have uncovered more of the road section and there are cobbles and stones either side of those two stone channels.
 
pretty obvious this old road would go soon...i doubt very much if anything would totally halt the metro..even if an old grave yard was discovered the bodies would only be removed to elsewhere but i am trying to turn this into a posative and say that i am sure that this will not be the only piece of brum history to be unearthed during the constant changes our city is once again going through.... the deeper they have dig to lay new foundations then the older the history will be that maybe found..:) so carry on digging bcc we await the next chapter

lyn
 
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It would be nice if some of the path/road could be placed somewhere else for others to see. Hopefully they won't just chuck it all away, or use it for rubble. Viv.
 
great idea viv even if they only placed 30ft of it near to where it was found...among other well known people chances are jo chamberlain trod that path..now theres a thought...

lyn
 
Viv,

Probably not really old enough, and as there appears to be no foundation supporting it, quite a costly business. In Aghios Nikolaos (Crete) , we've had foundations of the old agora (market) preserved, but that is, of course, much older. In one case it was while they were erecting a hotel/restaurant, so the ruins now form a basement to the building with an opening for the public to view and appropriate signage.

In another, it is just a costly open site which was originally going to be a large hotel. According to rumours, it was only "discovered" when some business rivals wanted to stop the hotel being built! A bit like badgers, crested newts or bats in the UK! :)

Maurice
 
In Hutton's History of Birmingham it said that Pinfold Street was established in the early 1700's It is shown on W Westley's map of 1731, which shows a range of buildings up to the Junction with the Stourbridge & Dudley Road.

Birmingham1.jpg W Westleys Map 1731
On the "west/ south" side of Pinfold Street and bounding on the Stourbridge road was Greenwood's Cherry Orchard. New Hall Lane, as it then was, was a higher road that descended to the Stourbridge Road opposite Pinfold Street.

The ground levels here are also evident in the 1830's engraving of Christ Church (1807), which has steps leading up to the Church. This entrance is shown on later maps as opposite Pinfold Street. Was the junction with Broad Street/ Swinford Street altered? It may explain why what has been uncovered appears to head off to the former Post Office buildings. There were public houses at this spot before, yet the engraving indicates an unbroken line of facades between Pinfold Street and Paradise Street. So it is less likely that these cobbles served as an access for the public house.

Pinfold Street is barely shown but it would have been near the horse rider and the person standing.

Birmingham3.jpg
 
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If they're going to dig the road up can't they find a way of donating at least some of it to the Black Country Living Museum. I'm sure they could find a spot for it.
 
At least it seems we have a definite period, not as early as Roman or Saxon and not as late as Victorian. I wondered what they might find beneath the road and it seems there were some finds. Good old clay pipes and pottery to give some dating.
I guess this would be in the time that the Birmingham canal system was first inaugurated and started to develop - a rapidly expanding city is mentioned.
 
Lady Penelope said:
If they're going to dig the road up can't they find a way of donating at least some of it to the Black Country Living Museum. I'm sure they could find a spot for it.
Click to expand...

pen thats too good an idea and an obvious one for us historians to think of for that to happen...:mad: would love to be proved wrong though

lyn
 
I would think that stone has value, when I pulled down an old cottage here there was a queue of buyers for the stone.
When the local Tesco was built the builders had a crusher on site and all the debris from the earlier demolished buildings was run through the crusher and used in the foundations.
 
most likely the outcome for this pavement eric...sad really and if i had a say in what happened to the cobbles i would have sold them off to onlookers for a quid a piece and given the money to charity..least that way something good would have come out of it

lyn
 
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For information here is a street “Directory” taken from the Birmingham Journal of 1834. I have not yet found the Streets for Aston.

D0FB1CAA-392C-4BD4-9AAD-0B66D7906D1A.jpeg A123E997-CA6A-4A07-ADBD-6BAFF32910EF.jpeg 0F1F6C34-F88D-486E-B21C-8BA44FC97F90.jpeg B31384FE-CF3E-4000-AEAF-D973FE4CD795.jpeg
 
I would have thought some might have been saved for examination. Whether the archeologists have done so remains to be seen.
When I passed this site in the afternoon all stones had gone.

I did wonder if the larger white stones were a drainage channel, but on comparing this bit of road with the cobbles on the road leading to the Flapper, which was the entrance to the Birmingham Canal Navigations Crescent Wharf, and 1790's in construction, I would believe such stones were put there for wagon wheels to pass over. The Pinfold Street bit of road has the same cross section;

flat cobbles..... stone..... raised cobbles.......stone...... flat cobbles
 
horsencart said:
The other photographers and myself did have a conversation about taking small a section of the roadway on the bus,
Click to expand...

That's not as weird as it sounds horsencart, when they were taking up the tramlines in Erdington, Graham brought a piece home - albeit in the car - how he lifted it I'll never know. I wonder what future generations will make of it when the demolish our house?
 
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i agree pen not weird at all...for those members who have not seen the below thread a few of us followed keenly for weeks the dig that happened in centenary square before the foundations for the new library started...beneath the library once lay the winfield brass company and with permisssion granted we were allowed to take away a barrow full of old bricks:Dthe only trouble is ive gone through this thread and cant seem to find all the posts about obtaining the bricks and what we did with them...will have a better look when i can could have missed them..but for now some members may find it of interest...i absolutely loved this one

lyn

https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/for...chaeological-site-library-centenary-sq.26299/
 
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A short section, maybe only a yard, would have sufficed to illustrate the construction, but we will have to make do with photographs, even though there were no overhead ones that were to scale as far as we know.

Maurice
 
i agree maurice...would just like to thanks to our roving reporters who are taking photos of the modern changing city and also of our history past...

lyn
 
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