Some history of the on the New Inn on Villa Street at Lozells in Birmingham in the county of Warwickshire.

The New Inn, a beer house that also traded as the New Inn Revived, and later the New Inns, was located on the western side of Villa Street just north of the Hockley Brook on the corner of Hunter's Vale.

Birmingham : Map extract showing the location of the New Inn on Villa Street at Lozells [1889]
© Crown Copyright. Reproduced with kind permission of the National Library of Scotland under the Creative Commons Attribution licence.

This map extract, surveyed in 1888 and published during the following year, shows the New Inn a few metres to the north of Hockley Brook. The watercourse formed part of the boundary between Birmingham in Warwickshire and Smethwick in Staffordshire, along with the divide between Handsworth in Staffordshire and Aston in Warwickshire.

Across the road from the New Inn was the Great Northern Eyelet & Rivet Works, a factory providing the pub with a thirsty customer base when their shift was over. However, in September of 1888, the year in which this map was surveyed, William Juxon, trading under the business name of Bell and Juxon, of the Great Northern River Works, was adjudicated a bankrupt at Birmingham County Court.¹ At this time the manufacturer was living at Hazelow Villa on Havelock Road at Birchfield. He had only commenced the business in 1885 and formed a partnership with George Bell. This arrangement only lasted 12 months with George Bell leaving the concern. William Juxon tried to find another partner but, although two men were interested, neither committed themselves fully.² His bankruptcy was perhaps the death of him. He died shortly afterwards. His wife Alice, whom he had married a few years earlier,³ moved to Summer Lane where she ran a tobacconist's shop next to the Saracen's Head.⁵ The works was later occupied by Firmin & Sons Ltd, makers of military uniform accessories, including badges, buttons and medals. Founded in 1677 Firmin would go on to become the oldest company in Birmingham.⁴ Still trading in the 21st century, the company, located on New Town Row, state on their website that they have been "manufacturing in the UK since 1655, making it the oldest manufacturing company in the UK, and one of the oldest still extant in the world." ⁶

Thanks to Lynn Harrington, I can show you this wonderful photograph of the building when it was known as the New Inns. It is such a bostin' photograph that I nearly fell off my chair when she uploaded the file. The photograph was originally supplied by the Carl Chinn Archive.

Birmingham : Post-Flood Work at the New Inns on the corner of Villa Street and Hunter's Vale at Lozells [1920s]
© Image supplied by Lynn Harrington, originally from the Carl Chinn Archive. DO NOT COPY

In the photograph, the cellars of the pub are being pumped out following flooding of the Hockley Brook. This stream was benign for most of the year but often flooded when it rained heavily. One of the worst floods occurred in July 1925 when one house was wrecked by the raging water that broke through the wall. In the flood that affected around 200 properties, some elderly residents had terrifying experiences before they got to safety. Three women, Mrs. Evans, aged 70, Miss Builk, also aged 70, and Mrs. While, aged 62, had to be rescued by the police from No.6 Cottage Place.⁷ This image may date from this particular flood, though there was another terrible disaster just two years earlier. Eventually, the brook was culverted by the public works department to prevent further damage to housing and property.

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Frederick Holyoake may have been an early beer retailer here but I have not found concrete evidence. I thought I would put it out there just in case. Widower John Horton was certainly running the New Inn during the early 1860s.⁸ The beer retailer was born around 1790 so was one of the thoroughfare's senior citizens and a link back to old Birmingham.

John Taylor was recorded as a retail brewer⁹ so the New Inn was almost certainly a homebrew house. Born in 1826 at Alcester where his parents, George and Mary, were toll gate keepers, John Taylor kept the New Inn with his wife Maria Perks. The couple had previously lived in a court on Well Street from where John worked as a brewer. The couple were certainly running the New Inn by 1864 for in January of that year John Taylor was hauled before the magistrates at the Erdington Petty Sessions for keeping the beer house open after eleven o'clock, an offence for which he was fined 5s. plus 12s. 6d. costs.Ten ¹⁰

John and Maria Taylor added the "Revived" element to the inn sign by the end of the 1860s. I guess we will never know the reason for definite - perhaps it was because they had taken over the beer house from a man in his seventies. Or maybe it was to gain some patronage from people using the New Inns at nearby Berners Street which was operated by Frederick Taylor in the late 1860s. Whatever, the tavern was trading as the New Inn Revived by 1870.

Following John Taylor's death, his Cotswolds-born wife Maria took over the licence of the New Inn Revived. She relied on taking in boarders to supplement the income of the beer house.

Will of Maria Talbot [1890]

The above will shows that the house was kept by Maria Talbot[t] when she died in March 1890, following which the lease, licenses, goodwill and possession of the New Inn Revived was advertised in the local press [see below image].

Sale Notice for the New Inn Revived at Villa Street in Lozells [1890]

West Bromwich-born Arthur Rhodes was running the New Inn shortly afterwards. He kept the beer house wife Emily who hailed from Small Heath.¹¹

By the early years of the Edwardian period the New Inn was operated by Ansell's. Frederick Eaton was running the pub for the brewery at this time.

On May 22nd 1936 the New Inn was one of eight public-houses that were refused a renewal of the licence because they were part of a list of houses which had been referred for compensation by the Birmingham Licensing Justices. Consequently, the New Inn closed for business shortly after this date, along with The Crown on Monument Road, the Park Tavern on Aston High Street, The Vine on Burbury Street, The Guest Street Tavern, the Wattville Tavern in Wattville Road, the Rising Sun in Talbot Street, and the Lord Napier at Hingeston Street.¹²

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Licensees of the New Inn

1861 - John Horton
1864 - John Taylor
1878 - John Taylor
1881 - Maria Taylor
1883 - Edward Talbot
1891 - Arthur Rhodes
1892 - George Willetts
1899 - William Blackburn
1901 - Frank Yates
1905 - Frederick Eaton
1913 - Frederick Brown
Note : this is not a complete list of licensees for this pub. The dates of early licensees are sourced from trade directories, census data, electoral rolls, rate books and newspaper articles. Names taken from trade directories may be slightly inaccurate as there is some slippage from publication dates and the actual movement of people.

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