ASTON MANOR IN 1977

Let us traverse the manor from Hockley Circus to Spaghetti Junction and from Witton Station to Newtown Centre. The Convent and early Victorian mansions of Hunters Road survive: on Barker Street the small neat villas of the 1850s are dilapidated and some are derelict. Behind is much clearance that briefly exposes off-street cottage rows before they too are demolished: on the wide straight streets, crumbling villas of a once-desirable suburb and a few small workshops await destruction. The R.C. boys' school off Willis Street and St. Silas's School behind the church vibrate no longer with 'the dull hum of education'. Long terraces are being razed - those of the 1870s - or refurbished. From Wilton Street eastward and Nursery Road southward the old street pattern and every building has gone: low terrace blocks are strewn along curving walks, groves, crofts, or drives down the slope. A community centre and the new Anglesey School edge the area. A greenway walk along the Bourn valley leads to the former concrete play-space, where now stands Newtown Recreation Centre, and continues to Wheeler Street, north-south axis of the district.

Two schools, Holte Comprehensive and Lozells Primary, and the site of a third, line its east side. Old streets are being given pseudo-ancient names like Old Postway (Berners Street) and Gunmakers Walk (Wilton Street).

Across Lozells Road's double row of shops, in buildings which span 120 years, the Newtown Extension has one tower and several three- and four- storey blocks on a truncated street-plan amid ninety-year-old terraces. In North Wilton Street a row of blackened cottages survives from a rural past. Furnace Lane is a greenway down the hill to Crocodile Works. Newtown Centre, a vast complex of shops and amenities, straddles the Bourn valley: Inkerman Tower sprouts from it. A community centre stands on the Aston slope above.

Of the High Street/Six Ways buildings none survives on the west side: the Barton Arms and Hippodrome (Bingo) stand isolated at the cleared edge of South Aston. Bartons Bank remains as a walk. A factory fringe on Phillips Street looks across at Aston Manor School and the new brown brick blocks of Potters Hill and Round Hill. Near Burlington School is a Social Services Centre. On the cleared ground of the Queens Road

Area beneath the Expressway there is little housing as yet. Victoria Road Baths have gone from the site at Park Circus Approach A divisional police station, schools complex, community centre and South Aston Housing Office await future inhabitants.

At Aston Cross the brewery and sauce works loom hugely over the derelict club and cinema, the Golden Cross, the library, and a few shops and offices. Wholesale clearance continues towards Salford, leaving pubs amid a factory or two standing. The two stations have been rebuilt for electric train services, but on either side of Lichfield Road's girder bridge may still be seen the sooted arches of 1837. Long walls of industry and services line the east side of what is now the A5127. From Victoria Road's north side shabby villas look down the hill to a confusion of cul-de-sacs that is replacing east-west roads and north-south streets. Next to Christ Church, Victoria Hall has been boldly restored for office use: Albert Hall round the corner is a factory.

The Borough Offices house the Library and Urban Renewal teams Witton Road south and its environs are seedy and ripe for replacement. The enclave of semis is still well -preserved, but many terraces of north Aston are the worse for ninety years of wear. Towards the Cross, Witton Road is still a moderately successful double row of small shops. Bingo reigns at the Pavilion. Round the corner the Borough Tram Depot, closed since 1949, is a car showroom: the lines were removed two decades ago. Drab chalets on Witton Lane, built with a view over Lower Grounds, now gaze at the blank walls of Ansells depot and Villa Park stands.

Through a gateway is visible the sad remnant of the gabled complex, of which most including theatre and tower came down twenty years ago. A concrete Bingo-box fills the last space between the Holte Hotel and the stadium. On Serpentine Road a row of recent houses defines the former east side of the manor house moat. Alongside, the ill-drained cinder patch (most of it anciently in Witton) where the Tame looped and pools long survived, is a car park for Villa supporters: a hypermarket is proposed for the site.

Westbrook House, last building of Aston Village other than the church, was demolished in April 1977. Witton Lane/Trinity Road has been widened to cope with Villa Park traffic, and new gates have been provided for the Hall Park. The stable block's windows have been renewed. Factories still flourish on and about Priory Road: a few old terraces thereabout are being restored to fit in with new ones now going up.

Salford Park is raised to the status of Sports Stadium: the tram reservation alongside makes a convenient car park. Demolition of terraces east of Lichfield Road leaves spaces for industry that may be long vacant. Though abandoned as a commercial artery, its wharves weedy and empty, the canal still lies between factories large and small whose loading ports are bricked up, and provides a murky way for pleasure craft bound for greener acres.

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