Urbanisation To Date

The first O.S. Six-Inch Map (surveyed 1880-88) shows both the accuracy of Snape's map of two centuries before and the long resistance to change in our district, for nearly all the ancient field-lines are to be seen still, either as now streets or old hedges. It also shows what has been characteristic of de-velopment hereabout - its relative slowness and patchiness, which has left us a legacy of prized open space. We see that even on roads laid out for more than a decade there is nothing like complete up-building. To name only three, Portland, Gillott, and Rotton Park Roads are untenanted except at their Hagley Road and Dudley Road ends. By 1895 building has only begun at both ends of City Road, and on Sandon Road and Poplar Avenue. Stanmore Road's nearness to the railway station had made it popular, and it was nearing completion.

The One-Inch Map of 1906 shows our schools and several additions to the street-pattern : Fountain and Bernard Roads, Ridgeway, Stanmore Road North, Ravenshaw Road, Selwyn Road South and Wheatsheaf Road, part of Hallewell Road, and full development of the streets between Shenstone and Rotton Park Roads. The branch line to Cape Hill has been cut. The ancient manor boundary is seen to be straddled by the Elementary (new Junior) School. Looking at the Calthorpe Estate, we see practical com-pletion within Edgbaston, though no change in the Harborne and Quinton parts. Even on the small one-inch scale the grounds of the later residences are large enough to be mapped. By this time Edgbaston Hall and Park have been acquired by a golf club.

Hagley Road is built up almost to the King's Head, and a journey along it provides a lesson on the degeneration of architecture from late Georgian times. At Bearwood, developing fast as a shopping centre, a new block opposite the rebuilt 'Bear is called 'Causeway' in remembrance of the embanking of the holloway which traffic had worn into Bear Lane (Sandon Road). At the 'Ivy Bush' too new shop blocks and converted terrace premises are catering for the prosperous Edgbastonians.

A street-map of 1912 (the year when Birmingham became Greater Birmingham, adding 30,000 acres to the 5000 it had acquired 1891-1909, shows the streets projected for City Road's north side across what are now playing fields. Only Wadhurst Road of these was actually made and built up, after War One. But seve-ral short cul-de-sacs have appeared elsewhere in the district - and building in the latest fashion has continued almost to the present.