URBANISATION TO 1850

On John Walker's map of 1833, whose accompanying schedule gives the ownership of every croft, Home Farm is shown at what is now the foot of Beacon Hill: it was tenanted by the Potters. By right of residence James Watt was lord of the manor and as such he appointed the last Steward, one George Barker of Lozells. It was during Watt's tenure that sash windows were fitted to the Hall kitchens. After his death in 1848, James Shaw lived in the Hall for a time, then furniture and furnishings and the Park deer were sold off.

Tomlinson maps no streets in Aston. The lanes are access roads on which stand fewer than fifty buildings of all kinds. The village is a scatter of dwellings along Aston Lane: there are hamlets at the foot of Hunters Lane, at Aston Cross, and at the top of Thimble Mill Lane. By 1833 urban development has begun in several areas. At the west end is Aston Villa, a district named after a mansion on Lozells Lane's north side (at Frances Road), only just in the manor. Four streets off Hunters Lane - Brougham, Wills and Villa Streets and Nursery Row - are marked out. More than a score of buildings have appeared, chiefly on Lane and Row. A gigmill, malthouse, and joinery stand on Lozells Lane: Hockley Brewery is alongside the nursery. The Lozells comprises several rows of cottages on and north of Lozells Lane, Lozells Farm (opposite Archibald Road) and two other houses nearby.

The farm, owned by T. Potter, occupies the west end of the manor as far east as the hedge-line that will be Lozells Street. East there-from, as far as Furnace Lane, is Sandhill Farm, J.B. Payn's property, and J. Grice's farm extends there-from east to the New Walsall Turnpike. Sixty closes between Park Wall and the Bourn have a dozen owners. The manor's east end belongs to the Waterworks Company. About the track that will become Catherine Street there is a hamlet, buildings are scattered between Thimble Mill Lane and the canal, while a few more houses have appeared on Aston Hall Road. The total number of dwellings is about 130. Six workers' cottages cluster near Aston Furnace and its millhouse, which has five acres of attached meadow. The premises, which include an engine house and new drying shed, are used for paper-making. Aston Brook Mill and fourteen acres are leased to Phillips, with a farmhouse, two tenements, stables, granary, and outbuildings.

By 1848, year of Fowler's map, urbanisation is proceeding rapidly in five distinct areas. The present pattern of streets is complete at the west end but these are only partially built up with named and dated cottages, places, and houses. The three-storey Villa Cross Inn has been built, but may be only a dwelling at this time. Lozells Farm is bisected by Burbury Street on which a single house stands near the top.

The farm fields still separate Aston Villa from The Lozells, which now includes a grid of streets bounded by Berners and Guildford Streets, between Lozells Lane and Jerome (later Gerrard) Street. South of the latter, which follows an old hedge-line, part of Sandhill Farm down to the millrace and pool is under-developed, though the line of Wheeler Street is marked down to and across the brook. South of Park Wall are two growing districts - New. Town, about New Street, High Street, and Potters Lane: and Aston Brook north of Phillips Mill, comprising Powell, Pool, and Sutton Streets, and The Retreat, a charming row of small houses with long front gardens. From Barrons Lane (Rocky Lane) to Park Street there is scattered building between turnpike and brook.