URBANISATION

No nucleated village ever provided a centre for growth in Handsworth. Development into the C19th was along the turnpikes, notably Soho Road. There were very small hamlets at the foot of Soho Hill, and about the Birchfield Road/Aston Lane junction. Late Georgian terraces were built, and some survive, on Hamstead Road and Barker Street, and there were isolated villas and mansions on the heath. Artisan terraces were being built from the 1840's on Crocketts Lane, Booth Street, Wattville Road, and around St. James's Church. Deve1opments and their dates are clearly indicated by Anglican church building - see above. After 1863 the Soho estate was developed, but only slowly : indeed, a character-istic of Handsworth development, which makes mapping almost impossible, is its sporadic and piecemeal character over several decades. New streets were laid out between old lanes and terraces and villas put up, but rarely until nearly the end of the century was a whole street completed within a short time. The result is that many thoroughfares are strange mixtures of types and periods of building, with odd bits of development from all decades after l840 to the present. A map can show only the period when most of the building was done in an area.

It is difficult to make any pattern out of C19th development : by 1900 only the south half of the district, bounded by Aston Lane, Wellington Road, Handsworth Wood Road, Somerset and Oxhill Roads, Sandwell Road, was more or less complete, at least as far as the street pattern was concerned. This century's streets have been much more uniform : apart from infillings like that of Heathfield, the main areas, first of bay-fronted terraces, later of semi's, were in the west and in Handsworth Wood. Since the war Cherry Orchard and Hamstead Hall estates have been completed. Compared with other areas Handsworth has been notable in having no large municipal estates - there are two tiny ones only - and hence no post-war tower blocks, and no large-scale redevelopment, except at Birchfield.

Population was about 2000 in 1800, more than seven times as great seventy years later. When Handsworth joined Birmingham it housed more than 85,000 and had probably 30,000 more by 1939. Immigration of people from the West Indies and Asia since the war, who occupy the villas and larger terrace houses in numbers greater than they were built for, have swelled the population considerably.

The immigrants have restored life to the shopping streets, Soho/Holyhead Road and Lozells Road notably, and saved many churches from closure. Perry Barr Shopping Precinct, and the drastic re-making of Birchfield Road, are pointers to the future of the old-style shopping areas on highways.

Dual carriageways began to appear in the '30's, and the old river bridges have been superseded. Hockley Brook's perennial bottleneck has been overpassed, and the Outer Circle route underpassed. Hamstead/Villa Roads junction, and Villa Cross, remain to be tackled, and Soho/Holyhead Road must be either improved or by-passed.

Future development in Handsworth is predictable. There will be more infillings and small redevelopments at greater density. All open spaces will be under great pressure, and it seems unlikely that the allotments at Holford and Hill Top will survive, even if the farms do. The golf course may stay, as it is part of the green belt, but some private sports grounds will be sold for housing. More towers will appear, and multi-storey car parks.

Schools will be rebuilt to house more children, industry will be wholly confined to the peripheral estates, and the railways may come into their own again as traffic congestion gets ever worse. Comprehensive redevelopment will begin in the Boulton area of the south, but the jumble of ages and qualities of housing there as elsewhere will complicate clearance.

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