BOUNDARIES

Throughout this essay locations will be given by reference to streets; this is an easy means of identifying sites, not an indication that the streets named were in existence in the period being considered. Because parts of Duddeston and Nechells have been redeveloped, it will sometimes be necessary to give two locations, the first being always that of 1939 and the second that of 1976.

The common bound of Duddeston and Nechells was formed by two small streams whose sources were joined by a hedge or fence: that on the north side cannot now be traced, but the southern brook ran down the little valley in which Saltley Road lies. The boundary would now go from the dip on Avenue Road south to Rupert Street, then east to and alongside Saltley Road.

Elsewhere the two estates were defined by watercourses except where Duddeston marched with Birmingham: there the parish and manor bound ran from Aston Brook Street to the River Rea east of Curzon Street Station, along a line parallel to and east of Elkington and Blews Streets, then down Legge Street to Gosta Green and Duke Street to A-B (Aston-Birmingham) Row and a line west of Howe Street. The last zigzag to the Rea once followed a parallel river channel.

The north end of the boundary was the lowest reach of Newhall Brook, and it is probable that a lost rill provided the south end. Aston (or Hockley) Brook separated Duddeston and Nechells from Aston Manor. From Salford to the former confluence with the Rea (400 yards west of the present one) an arm of the River Tame formed Nechells' bound with Erdington.

On the south-east side, Saltley Manor lay along the opposite bank of Rea. All the bounding streams have been diverted during the last century, so that they no longer exactly define the districts. Together these covered (in 1838) 926 acres, stretching 2'/4 miles from south-west to north-east, and narrowing from 2000 yards across south Duddeston to 1000 yards at Nechells Park Mill.

Index