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The first O.S. Map, one inch to a mile, shows Beaks and Rotton
Park Farms. The former is labelled, its site close to Shireland
Brook's right bank : no trace of it remains today, but the track
that led to it is still there, about halfway along Willow Avenue.
'Our' farm is shown on a foredrove now known as Fountain Road going
north to 'Portland Pool' : another crosses what is now the playing
field towards the Two-Mile Stump. Just to the east thereof stands
the great house called 'The Oaks'. Opposite the mansion now embedded
in St. Chad's Hospital is the famous Hazelwood School, and Oakhill
House south of it. The westward spread from Birmingham reached no
further than Stirling and Reservoir Roads, and this is ribbon development
only. There is a hamlet near Ladywood House, and that at Gib Heath
is growing. But west of the canal reservoir the district was in
the early 1850's still wholly rural.
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