The Eighteenth Century

In late Stuart times Birmingham began to develop the gun and brass trades. Twenty miles from the nearest river ports (Bewdley, Stratford, Burton), lacking raw materials and sources of power, the 'town' had natural disadvantages which could be overcome only by skill and enterprise. Windmills were used to supplement watermills for industrial purposes. Manufacturers and workers had to adapt to changing need and fashion. Company of Gunmakers, 1690, gun quarter developed on Weaman Estate. Brass casting from 1715. 'Toys' - small wares in brass, buckles, buttons, etc.

'Brummagem pretenses' - counterfeit coins, poor jewellery. Triangle Trade and East India Co. contracts. Hardware, wire-drawing, finishing of Black Country products. 700 families moved to B. 1686-1726, most from adjacent shires. Lloyds, Galtons, Pembertons, among those moving here to escape religious persecution. Townsfolk not specially tolerant - riots in 1709-15, Meeting Houses burnt. First attempt to obtain Incorporation failed: manor court, parish officials still sole governing bodies. No paid police, poor road maintenance. Fire engines at each church.

Birmingham in 1731 - William Westley's Map and Prospects.
(The conjectural plan for the 1553 Survey translation used Westley's map as its basis). Dedication of map to M.P.s for county, Edward Digby of Coleshill Hall, William Peyto of Chesterton. Map has west at top, shows whole of borough, part of Deritend. Starting therefrom, ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL (15) looks like the Dugdale sketch, bell-turret shown overlarge: building replaced 1735 by brick and stone church. GOLDEN LION (16) and OLD CROWN (off map) probably both inns. Four-arched bridge 1651, timber footbridge downstream. Houses just across bridge were in Bordesley (Aston) Parish - boundary was 'sickle-shaped drain', old dry meander course. The former tanyards were now market gardens. The prospects show a windmill east of the ponded Rea, and Copper's watermill (Heath Mill) has two undershot wheels in tandem. Floodgate- and course in Little Park, still open.

Digbeth unchanged, continuous double line of mostly timbered houses, some plastered or bricked-up, few new ones of brick, all tile-roofed. Meeting-House, Almshouses (Lench's Trust). Many backyard buildings, Lloyd's Corn and Slitting Mills, large pool, off left. Hassum's Ditch off right, lake now dry. Demesne Parks still undeveloped, closes, orchards, market gardens. Prospect shows new Edgbaston Hall and church, wood beyond.

MOAT (2) unchanged, plain brick mansion, C17th, and factory buildings - blade mill 1741, thread mill 1760. ST.MARTIN'S CHURCH, encased 1690, clerestory 1733, chancel raised 9 feet to level of churchyard (1). Two flights of steps up from Well Street holloway. Roundabout houses. (3) Rectory, gabled, moated. Coldbath or Lady Well nearby, pure water from 'exhaustless underground river' (Hutton), actually from spring at water table base. Small enclosed pool, bath-house beside. (4) OLD GILD HALL, King Edward VI School, replaced 1707 by ugly towered building - demolished 1830. (14) OLD CROSS, High or Butter Cross, rebuilt 1703, room above - Debtors' Court 1752. Clock 1727. Green still cluttered with shops and houses. (13) WELCH CROSS, upper end of High Street, 1706, guardroom and clock above, 1710. Stocks and whipping post. (Gallows at Washwood Heath, perhaps elsewhere).

Tollbooth, Leather Hall, demolished 1728. No tollgates or keepers' houses, although turnpikes from 1726-7. Third MARKET CROSS (9) at Coleshill/Stafford Sts, not a building. No central market: corn and garden produce in Corn Cheaping, fowls, fruit, and butter at the Old Cross, meat at the Shambles, horses in New Street, beasts in High Street and Dale End.

(8) KETTLE'S STEELHOUSE off Whitehall Lane, site near Nurses' Home. CARLESS'S STEELHOUSE, Chapel Street, bottom of Dale End. Almshouses in Whitehall Lane/Loveday St. corner, 1691. (Workhouse, like 'gentlemen's Residence', built 1735 on Land For Building shown at bottom of Lichfield St, now Lower Corporation St. Same year, 'Dungeon' (Prison) built near Pinfold St.) CHURCH OF ST. MARY MAGDELENE, burnt 1688, site (11). BAPTISTS' MEETING HOUSE in Freeman Street (12). PRESBYTERIAN MEETING HOUSE in Moor St., 1732. (First Congregational Chapel in Carrs Lane 1748). Friends (Quakers) met in Bull Street, Jews in Froggary synagogue (New Street Station.) ST. PHILIP'S CHURCH, now pro-Cathedral, (5), consecrated. 1715, Arden sandstone, designed by Thos. Archer of Umberslade. Shown overlarge in Prospect as Archer was a patron of Westley. Four bells added in 1727. Churchyard 4 acres. Temple Street, named after mimic temple shown on map. Temple Row then Tory Row, 1715, way to church for New Town dwellers. John Pemberton's Priory Estate. THE SQUARE, (7). No trade or industry permitted. Blue Coat School, corner of churchyard, 1724. NEW HALL (6), C17th . Colmore house and estate: approached by elm avenue, now Newhall St. Little and Great Pools on Priory or Newhall Brook. At foot of Snow Hill, causeway and bridge over brook.

Borough still confined by estates - Holme Park (Bishop Sherlock, later Sir Thos. Gooch), Little Park (Jennens, ironmasters), Legge (Gosta Green), Holte (Duddeston), Weaman and Colmore, Inge (west of Parsonage). 58 named streets, 150 courts and alleys, 3719 buildings, a third increase in 31 years. Old Town on sandstone slope, clay below unbuilt except for Digbeth ridge: New Town being developed on ridge top and north slope after Colmore Estate sold. Streets now lost include Spiceal Street (Bull Ring Centre frontage), Tunkies St. (bottom of Hill St.), Brickhill Road (Birchall St.), Pemberton's Yard/Westley's Row (Dalton St.).

30.1. Map 16a

30.2. Map 17a