Some history on Moseley Road at Bordesley, Highgate, Balsall Heath and Moseley in the county of Warwickshire

Moseley Road Pubs

other houses ...

Belgrave Hotel
Castle and Falcon
Highgate Arms
Highgate Tavern
Merry Maid
New Inn
Orange Tree Tavern
Plough and Harrow
Tramway Inn
Waggon and Horses

More information to follow ....

Column-2

Moseley Road Photographs

Moseley Road follows a long route from Bradford Street at Deritend and Bordesley, through Highgate and Balsall Heath towards Moseley village, meeting Alcester Road at the junctions of Edgbaston Road and Trafalgar Road.

This photograph shows the row of properties that stood between Moseley Street and Highgate Park, on the western side of Moseley Road. These were numbered 69 [on the corner of Moseley Street] to 79 [closest to the camera] A contemporary trade directory for the date of this photograph [January 1958] lists George W. Tomkin, a cycle agent at No.71, the end property seemingly vacant. I suspect this is an error as the electoral roll lists George W. Tonkinson at No.71. Next door at No.73 was the shopkeeper, Rose Fox. No.71 was occupied by the second-hand furniture dealer, Blanche Pearsall. She lived on the premises with her husband George. The newsagent's shop was kept by Owen and Lilian Baxter, and the nearest retail premises was the domain of the fruiter, Edith K. Smith.¹ It would appear that she also retailed some groceries in addition to fruit and veg. There is a billboard advertisement for Ansell's on the end wall, and a large billboard on the junction of Moseley Street advertised Worthington. An interesting street furniture element of the scene is that the tall poles or posts, that once supported overhead cables for trams, were still in place.

Birmingham : Map extract showing the row of shops between Moseley Street and Highgate Park at Bordesley [1889]
© Crown Copyright. Reproduced with kind permission of the National Library of Scotland under the Creative Commons Attribution licence.

I have placed an arrow pointing at the shops on the above map extract published in 1889. Note the Hen and Chickens just around the corner in Moseley Street. Looking back to the time of the map, the street numbering was different. No.30, the premises on the corner of Moseley Street was once the Highgate Arms. Next door at No.31 was the greengrocer, William Henry Twiby. The furniture dealer, Ann Fox, made a living as a furniture dealer at No.30. Next to her Eliza Shelley was recorded as a shopkeeper. The premises seen above as a newsagent's was occupied by William Dowding who operated a dairy. And finally, the building closest to the camera was occupied by Thomas Osborne Springfield Kemp, a tailor by trade.²

The map extract above shows the location of the Lodge of Highgate Park. The building can be seen here just inside the park gates. I took photographs of the lodge in 2006 and, being occupied by the keeper, it was in decent condition. It was subsequently vacated and the vandals moved in. The building was put out of its misery around 2016 and was taken away in skips following the work of the wrecking ball. In the 21st century, despite some work on the park, people are afraid to venture inside the gates. I avoid it because of the broken glass threat to my bike tyres!

At one time the land on which the park was laid out was an enclosed pasture. In the 18th century the land was owned by the wealthy widow Elizabeth Hollier. Following her death in 1790, her book-length will stipulated that any revenue from land use here should be used to provide clothing for poor men and women of both Aston and Birmingham. Subsequently, the enclosure, measuring around 12 acres, became known as Hollier's Charity Land. It had earlier been called Bell Ringer's Close. With the creeping industrialisation of the surrounding area, and with the fencing falling into disrepair, in the mid-Victorian era the land soon became "a perfect wilderness, covered with litter, dusty in summer, muddy in winter, and, altogether, an eyesore to all who saw it." ³ The land was ripe for speculative development but the Corporation secured the site, paying the trustees of the charity £5,390 on May 25th, 1875, for eight acres of land.⁴ An irregular corner at the Moseley end, valued at £628, was appropriated as the site for Board schools. Another piece of land, separated from the park by Chandos Road, containing about 2,000 square yards, was reserved as a site for the erection of public baths.⁸ The landscape gardener, Thomas William Coudrey, proprietor of the Edgbaston Nursery at Ampton Road, was charged with creating the park. The lodge, fencing and gates were erected by Messrs. Cresswell of Five Ways.³

The fifth public park of the town, it was originally intended to name the grounds Camp Hill Park, but this was changed to Highgate Park before it was officially opened on June 2nd, 1876, by the Mayor, Joseph Chamberlain. A principal aim of the open space was to provide clean air for those surrounded by factories but this was undermined somewhat when the officials at the opening ceremony were surrounded by a pall of smoke. It was a gala event and the crowd attending the ceremony was estimated at 10,000, entertained to some degree by the police band.⁵

Birmingham : Statue of King Edward VII in Highgate Park [February 26th, 1954]
© Image taken by the late Phyllis Nicklin, a tutor in geography in the former Department of Extramural Studies at the University of Birmingham. Copyright and database rights of her images belongs to the Museums, Libraries and Archives [MLA] West Midlands and the University of Birmingham who kindly grant permission for display on non-commercial sites.

Taken by Phyllis Nicklin, this photograph was captured not long after restoration work on Highgate Park had been undertaken, repairing damaged caused by bombing in World War 2. As a result of work on Victoria Square for the Festival of Britain, the statue of King Edward VII was moved to Highgate Park. However, after some protests from councillors, the statue was, for a period, placed in storage in a depot of the Public Works Department.⁶ The nomadic monarch was positioned in Highgate Park over the last weekend in January 1951. Since then, of course, the statue created by Albert Toft has been defaced and damaged several times. The statue underwent a second major restoration and was re-sited outside Baskerville House in Centenary Square during 2013.⁷ There was another appropriation when the massive bronze fountain which for many years stood in the centre of the Market Hall was removed to Highgate Park in 1880 and formally opened by the then Mayor, Richard Chamberlain.⁸ When it was sited in the Market Hall, the fountain was a favourite meeting-place for courting couples.⁹

If one looks closely at the photograph of the statue of King Edward VII, a house that no longer exists can be seen on the extreme left of the image. This photograph, taken in January 1958, shows a row of "lost" houses that almost faced the lodge and entrance to Highgate Park. Some of the fine Regency houses, once the residences of wealthy industrialists, have survived but all the properties seen in this image have gone. At the time of this photograph the remaining properties were largely occupied by those working in hospitals or medical profession, the remainder housing a diverse cross-section of society. Multiple occupancy was quite the norm by the look of things. There are no house numbers to be seen above but I believe the semi-detached houses to the right were Nos.86-88, and stood next to the surviving No.90, an early 19th century house known as Parkhurst.

Birmingham : Map extract showing the houses facing Highgate Park [1889]
© Crown Copyright. Reproduced with kind permission of the National Library of Scotland under the Creative Commons Attribution licence.

I have dropped another map extract in here to help with identification of the remaining houses facing Highgate Park. The arrow at the top of the map extract shows the above Nos.86-88. Trade directories for Moseley Road only listed the houses by their street number but, as can be seen from this map, the names of these early 18th century residences were shown. I have included a couple of images and overlaid them on the map to help with identification. I have included colour photographs of some of these houses in the Contemporary Photographs section.

Birmingham : Housing on Moseley Road facing Highgate Park [February 19th, 1954]
© Image taken by the late Phyllis Nicklin, a tutor in geography in the former Department of Extramural Studies at the University of Birmingham. Copyright and database rights of her images belongs to the Museums, Libraries and Archives [MLA] West Midlands and the University of Birmingham who kindly grant permission for display on non-commercial sites.

The marvel that was Phyllis Nicklin captured many of these residences in February 1954. This view is a little further along Moseley Road, the house on the extreme left being West View. The first of the residences in white stucco was known as The Olives. Next up is The Larches, followed by a row of red brick houses, and to the right, a glimpse of the magnificent stucco-faced villas, featuring three 2-storey bows.

Birmingham : Map extract showing the Highgate Dispensary and School for Deaf Children [1889]
© Crown Copyright. Reproduced with kind permission of the National Library of Scotland under the Creative Commons Attribution licence.

I have overlaid an image of the aforementioned stucco-faced villas on this map extract to help with positioning, though the famous Stratford House can be seen on the map in the bottom-right corner. Dated 1601, the former farmhouse stands in Stratford Place. The narrow Chandos Road still exists and runs alongside the site of Calthorpe Academy, a school largely hidden by trees and fencing. It partly stands on the former site of Moseley Road Board School. Also listed as Chandos Road Board Schools, this educational establishment was opened in 1877 for boys, girls and infants. It was extended in 1894 to accommodate deaf children. A later map shows the extension to the front and occupying part of Stone Yard. Scottish-born Isabella Longwill was headmistress of the deaf school for 35 years. She remained head until her retirement at Christmas 1932. When she became associated with the school there were but 17 pupils. By the time of her retirement there were 60 young people studying here. When she died at her Malvern home in 1958, in recognition of her outstanding service, the school bore her name. Isabella Longwill was known nationally for her efforts to provide for the deaf child of nursery age. She stressed the importance of early diagnosis and education at international conferences. The school was one of the first to provide facilities for deaf children under the age of three. She was responsible for the city's first lip-reading classes for women, in 1912, and the establishment of an old pupils' social club. For many years she was a member of the executive committee of the National College of Teachers of the Deaf. After her retirement she continued her interest in the welfare of the deaf.¹⁰ Isabella Longwill was succeeded by Agnes Lack, a member of the teaching staff at Moseley Road School. She was headmistress until 1951, during which time she authored "The Teaching Of Language To Deaf Children." ¹¹

Returning to the last map extract, it can be seen that there was an open space between the housing and Highgate Dispensary. Although published in 1889, the map was surveyed during the previous year. I imagine that building work was being conducted during the survey but perhaps too soon for the structure to be included on a map. This was the site of the Highgate Park Baptist Chapel, which opened for Divine service on the afternoon of Friday April 19th, 1889, when a sermon was preached by the Rev. Dr. Clifford, president of the Baptist Union. The congregation had previously worshipped in Lombard Street.

Working to the designs of the Colmore Row architect, Ewen Harper, the chapel was constructed by John Webb, a building contractor based in Wills Street at Lozells. Built with brick and stone, the chapel was in the Early English style of Gothic architecture, and consisted of a nave, with open-timbered roof, stone clerestory windows, and aisles [a gallery extending across the end of the nave], and a chancel with apsidal end. In addition, vestries for the minister, choir, and deacons were provided, along with a spacious organ-chamber. Costing £3,440, the building could accommodate 700 worshippers.¹²

Despite occupying a perfectly sound building, a decision was made to close the chapel in the inter-war years. This was due to declining worshippers, a decrease attributed to the depopulation of the central areas of Birmingham. Around 1932 the church members leased the building to the Elim Four Square community, who continued services here until February 1934. In the following month the chapel was put up for auction.¹³ The building may not have sold and it lay empty until 1936 when it was sold to a London firm.¹⁴ Dating from 1935, the above photograph shows the building with "For Sale" signs.

When the former chapel was sold in January 1936 it was reported that the school room was in the process of conversion into business premises. Meanwhile, the congregation of the old chapel moved to Hall Green where, in March 1935, the foundation stone of a new Baptist Church was laid, the building opening in January 1936.¹⁵ Kelly's trade directory of 1939 suggests that the school room was unoccupied but here in January 1958 it can be seen that it was the premises of Norman E. Potts, machine tool merchants. Norman Eric Potts had founded the business in 1925 and he made his pile after the Second World War when the firm was able to buy from the Government on behalf of clients' used machine tools no longer required from armaments production.¹⁶

Taken on January 1st, 1958, this photograph shows Highgate Dispensary which stood on the corner of Moseley Road and Stratford Place. I am not sure why this attractive building was demolished, the site being just a patch of grass for many years. The history of such an institution here in Highgate dates back to 1871 when the committee of the Birmingham General Dispensary made the decision to create branches in various outlying parts of the town. The dispensary at Highgate was the first and served as a trial to determine if such a system could be rolled out successfully. The first dispensary was opened in a house on this corner formerly occupied by Thomas Beilby, a magistrate who died in 1860.¹⁷

In the first year the dispensary had 1,205 patients. By the time this building was erected in 1886-7 the numbers had risen to 4,505. This was a result of the increased population of Highgate but also credited to the popularity of Dr. North, considered a most congenial and efficient practitioner. The new dispensary, designed by the architects Dempster and Heaton, was arranged on an apsidal plan as the most effective way of getting over the difficulty of an acute angled site [see map extract below]. Patients would enter the building at the corner, beneath the octagonal tower, the latter measuring some 70ft., and surmounted by a spire and gilded vane. The roof was supported by circular ribbed and plain principals, these being stained and varnished as they were exposed to view, rather like the nave of a church. There was a large waiting hall for patients who were seen in consulting rooms, serious cases being treated in a small operating room. A doctor's house, on the ground floor, overlooking Highgate Park, and featuring two sitting rooms, was incorporated into the structure. On the first floor there was accommodation for the porter and servant. The external elevations were described as free adaptations of late Tudor architecture, featuring brick with Kenilworth stone mullions, bands, and dressings. Warm red in colour, the tower was almost all in stone. The architects believed that this would keep its colour in the smoky atmosphere of the locality. Supplied by Hart, Son, Peard and Co., the boundary wall was once surmounted by ornamental iron railings but these may have been requisitioned during the war. The dispensary was constructed by Messrs. Horsley Brothers, based in nearby Alcester Street, the carving being completed by Mr. Naylor.¹⁸

MORE OLD PHOTOS & INFO
ON MOSELEY ROAD TO FOLLOW ....

Column-3

Birmingham : Nos.5-9 on Moseley Road [2006]
© Photo taken by author on August 6th, 2002. DO NOT COPY

This short row of properties, numbered 5 to 9 Moseley Road are the only fragment of the past at the Bradford Street end of the thoroughfare. The shop, officially at No.5 was extended into the neighbouring premises at some point. Early census data suggests that these properties were private houses. This would change in the late Victorian period when a fruiterer started to trade here. However, in the 1930s there still only seems to be one shop here. In 1939 Gertrude Cooling was recorded as a shopkeeper at No.5. These properties were only a few doors away from the Shepherds' Rest which stood on the corner of Bradford Street.

It seems ridiculous that this lovely house was demolished in a period when the UK was suffering from a housing crisis. The park keeper lived in this house, which I presume was part of the remuneration package. In 1892, the annual cost of maintenance was estimated at £350, £200 of which was for wages for the park-keeper and three assistants.¹⁹ Together, they kept Highgate Park neat and tidy for local residents to enjoy. In 1892 the park-keeper was John Lowndes, who lived in the lodge with his wife Mary Ann.²⁰ He had previously worked as a gardener at Middleton Hall in Warwickshire.

No.90 Moseley Road is thought to date from 1810-15. Architectural historian, Andy Foster, suggests that it may have been the work of John Horton, as the lower architraves are like those of the Gun Barrel House in Digbeth, erected in 1813.²¹ This residence was marked as "Parkhurst" on a map surveyed in 1888. The numbering was different in the mid-19th century. It is not easy to determine who lived here in those days, particularly as the numbering changed again in the late Victorian era. Frustratingly, the house names were not recorded by those compiling trade directories or enumerators collecting the census. After being in the 400s, the numbering settled down at the end of the 19th to those of today. An Aston rate book of 1901 recorded the tailor, Robert Owen Millward, as the owner-occupier of the house and workshop here. The latter may have been where he and his widowed mother, Mary Ann, also a tailor, stitched some of their garments, though they had retail premises at No.94 High Street Bordesley. His wife, Nellie May, was also recorded as a tailor, the 1901 census showing that she specialised in trousers.²³

Looking at the life of Robert Millward turns up some connections with public-houses. He was born in September 1870 and baptised in the recently-constructed Church of Saint Gabriel in Barn Street. He spent his formative years in Coventry Street. In October 1886, at the age of 15, he began work as a clerk for the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway.²⁴ He resigned from this post in August 1889 and, like many of his siblings and in-laws, worked with his mother in the tailoring business. He married Nellie May Bradley in 1898 at King's Norton. By the Edwardian period, whilst still living here at Parkhurst, he was in a tailoring business with Owen Stanley Goodman, trading at 44 Bristol Street as Millward and Goodman. However, in February 1906, they were in difficulty and were sought a deed of arrangement with their creditors. This may have been the catalyst for a career change for Robert Millward. The census of 1911 shows him and his wife Nellie running the Royal Oak on the corner of Stoney Lane and Alfred Street. Nellie Millward, daughter of a horse dealer, died in 1915. In the following year Robert Millward was in charge of the Rose Inn on Edgbaston Street.²⁵ Whilst working as a commercial traveller, he re-married in 1923 to Emily Eva Mynott. The daughter of a policeman, she had worked in the hotel trade. In the late 1930s the couple were running the White Hart Inn at Charlbury on the edge of The Cotswolds where the former tailor died in 1940. By this time Parkhurst was still occupied by a master tailor as it was home to Bernard Johnson, who, like his father, was a bespoke tailor. He had lived here since Edwardian times as his parents had occupied the house.

This Italianate-styled residence is a little later than Parkhurst, possibly an 1840s building. On the 1889 map extract it was called Highgate Lodge. The large house, with the address of 92-4 Moseley Road, was no doubt built for one of the well-to-do set wanting a good view of the town from an elevated position on the edge of development. However, when the housing of the hoi polloi crept nearer to the more affluent, they moved further out to places like Moseley. Buildings such as this had to find new uses and this one was snapped up by the Birmingham District Nursing Society, a charitable body founded in 1870 and completely reliant on voluntary contributions. Some of the funds was used to acquire accommodation for the nurses engaged in providing home care for the poor. The nurses were generally overwhelmed by their workload. In 1902 it was stated that "for the poorer classes of a city numbering half a million people, there were 17 nurses." ²⁶ In that year the committee expressed a desire to increase the nursing staff to 30 and to have four homes instead of two. This house was one of a pair providing accommodation for around eight district nurses. After the founding of the National Health Service this residence continued to house nursing staff. The organisation was then known as the Birmingham Public Health Department Home Nursing Service.

Unlike the last two properties, the house once known as West View is not a listed building. Perhaps this is due to the residence losing its original portico, the outline of which can be seen on the map extract of 1889. In the mid-19th century this house may have been called Ellerslie Cottage, though I am not 100& sure. If so, it was once home to the corn factor, Henry Burbidge, who traded from premises in Bradford Street. Those premises were robbed by daring thieves who carried away a safe weighing nearly 400lb. Henry and Mariam Burbidge moved out to Moseley and took the name of the house with them. Their new home in Ascot Road was also known as Ellerslie. At the turn of the 20th century the house had become the surgery of George Langford Clay, who lived here with his wife Fanny, and a daughter, also named Fanny. The family hired a Harriet Taylor as a domestic servant.

Boarded-up, The Birches looked a bit of a mess at the turn of the Millennium. In more recent times it has been renovated and converted into a 23-bed male mental health inpatient unit named Stanford Court. The stucco villa with late Grecian detail is thought to date from the 1830s. In the 20th century the house formed part of St. Vincent's Home for Working Boys' which occupied the neighbouring property. This was, for a period, the home of Alfred and Teresa Flynn, superintendent and matron respectively. They were in residence from May 2019 until their retirement around 1964. The couple then moved to Victoria Road in Acock's Green. Albert Theodore Flynn served as a provincial president of the Catenian Association and received Papal awards in 1943 and 1952. He was also editor of Health and Happiness magazine.²⁷

With three semi-elliptical bays with rusticated pillars, this row, numbered 116-120 Moseley Road, would fit in nicely at Cheltenham, a town boasting many such Regency buildings. Here in Highgate, the row is something of a showstopper. Originally built as a pair of stucco-faced villas, the structure is thought to date from the 1840s. By the end of the century, No.120 was a club house for St. Anne's Catholic Association Limited. It was also the home of the Kilkenny-born police constable, James Bulger and his wife Ann. At this time No.118 had been sub-divided into a large number of flats, being occupied by a cross-section of society, clerks, tool-makers, typists, and a school teacher. In the Edwardian period No.116 was also occupied by a teacher. Gertrude Helen Brown worked a short distance away at King Edward VI Grammar School on Stratford Road at Camp Hill.

Column-4