Public Parks

The first park for public use was offered to the Borough by C.B. Adderley in 1854. It was not accepted and named after him until eight years later. Meanwhile Lord Calthorpe had leased land between Pershore Road and the meandering Rea to the Corporation ('57). There were certain restrictions on the use of Calthorpe Park until '94, when it was given freely to what had by then become the City. Highgate Park was the first to bought by the Corporation in the same year, '76, 12 acres of the grounds of Summerfield House were acquired. More was bought 1890-2, and the Park reached its pre-Walkway size, 34 acres. The rather ugly Summerfield House was then demolished and the bandstand was built -on its site. From 1900 onward the Calthorpe Estate gave gifts of land for the new University of Birmingham totalling 90 acres, and 120 acres more have been sold for extensions since World War Two. Chamberlain Gardens on Monument Road were given in '22, and the Reservoir Park was bought three decades later.

It is appropriate here to mention other open spaces that are not parks. The Botanical Gardens, landscaped on Chad Brook's north valley side, were opened in 1852 : they set the standard for the grounds of Calthorpe Estate mansions thenceforth. The Birmingham Athletic Club and the King Edward VI Foundation leased adjacent closes of Rotton Park Farm from the Gillott estate ninety years ago : during World War One these were used to grow food, and allotment patches were cultivated between City Road and the Harborne line and beside Chad Brook. George Dixon Secondary Schools had to use a bumpy field off Balden Read from 1910 until '29, when the B.A.C./K.E. field behind the schools was taken over.

Development of the south end of Rotton Park stopped during War One, and before it was resumed Mitchells & Butlers and Averys had acquired large pieces of the land for their playing fields. This meant that projected streets north of Portland Road and south of Wadhurst Road were never built : gaps in the houses near the south end of City Road, left for the latter, have never been infilled. The allotment patch off Stanmore Road North remained in cultivation until after War Two, so the bridge intended to take Ravenshaw Road over the railway to Gillott Road has stayed unused except by trespassers.