A WALK AROUND MOSELEY VILLAGE

Village Green
This scene will be looked at on return to the green at the end of the walk. A prehistoric track probably lay along the ridge between Rea and Spark/Cole valleys. No information about settlement before C 7th, when colonies of Hwiccans (West Saxons) from Bromsgrove settled Norton (North Farm) and other places on Lickey slopes. Herders seeking grazing grounds followed the ridge, found a level 'bench' site where rough shelters could be built. There were oak forests to north and on the Rea valley side, stony heaths to east and south. Families moved to 'mouse clearing', gradually extending it for agriculture with fire and axe.

Heaths provided rough pasture, Rea meadows were used for summer grazing and hay crops, the forest gave timber for building and fuel, pannage for swine. There was abundant game, and a stream which could be dammed to make fishponds. The gravely site was dry and firm, shallow wells yielded water in plenty. A cluster of huts was linked by a stockade for stock protection at night. The ancient track joined (Kings) Norton to Birmingham and its market. A lane from it led to Wake Green and Lady Pool. A short cut between the two created a triangular green, which in medieval times may have been bordered by cottages on all sides. Those on the south side were probably cleared when the Hall Park was made.

Up St. Mary's Row to the Church Tower
The corner here is the surviving part of the Moseley of 150 years ago. The mother church was in Bromsgrove, St. Nicholas' in Kings Norton being a daughter chapel; that was 4+ difficult miles away, so in 1405 the Moseleians obtained a licence for their own chapel. Completion of the first small building is of uncertain date; a chaplain was recorded in 1446. The tower was begun in 1513 but long unfinished. 48 loads of dressed stone from Bromsgrove Old Parsonage were used in it, so the worn blocks may be 700 years old. The tower was the village refuge, defensible against attack - see original slit windows. The buttresses and Decorated windows are later. The clock was restored recently; it has adorned the tower since 1857. The outbuildings nearby are the survivors of many such which formerly lay behind houses on the green.

Move to the East End of the Church
Nothing is left of the C 15-16th chapel except the worn tower, now dwarfed by the 1909 clerestory and crushed beneath Victorian battlements and pinnacles. On its east wall are three roof lines of earlier building periods. The chapel was in disrepair 1776-80, and no services were held. A brick case was then built round it, 8 feet higher than the stone walls, round-headed windows were provided for nave and tower, the latter also receiving a balustraded parapet. In 1823 Thos. Rickman was employed to 'improve' the chapel. He plastered the walls to look like stone and cast-iron girders to look like timber, added a gallery, and put iron frames in the windows.

There was still no chancel, and the nave was full of rented pews in carved wood, with some free public seats. Moseley was enparished in 1866. Four years later the nave was enlarged and a clerestory added. Battlements, pinnacles - and perhaps the large windows - were provided for the tower. In '78 the churchyard was enlarged, two cottages on St. Mary's Row being replaced by the lychgate and others demolished behind the Bull's Head.

Move to the North Side of the Church
The grey sandstone north aisle was added in '84. Except for this and the tower, the whole church was rebuilt in 1909. The chancel of 1870 was extended by 21 feet. What we see today is a large suburban church in the Decorated Gothic style. It was damaged by fire during the 1940 blitz, and stained glass was destroyed by a landmine blast. Restoration was completed in '55, and recent work has been the tidying of the long-neglected grave-yard and the building of a new wall. A list of headstone inscriptions has been made by the Genealogists' Society and me be seen in the Local Studies Department of Birmingham Reference Library. Inside the church are memorials to local families, including three commemorated in street-names: the Russells, Cottons, & Andertons. There are no Grevis or Taylor tombs (see below): the Grevises have a corner in St. Nicholas' churchyard at Kings Norton, and the Taylors were Dissenters.

Cross to Meteor Car-park.
A view may be had through the fence of the Gloucester Railway cutting of 1837, earliest in the Birmingham area. The line was open to Camp Hill in 1840, to Curzon Street in '41, New Street in '54. 'Kings Heath and Moseley' Station opened in '41, beside 'Queensbridge' built in the year of Victoria's accession, '37. Huge excavation in gravel ridge, material used for embankments elsewhere. Gothic arches to tunnel entrance beneath St. Mary's Row. Stanley Place, Church Avenue, upper St. Mary's Row terraces date from 1880's when gas, water, and frequent trains were all available. Moseley then a 'desirable suburb' for middle class and artisans, near to but downwind from Birmingham.

Wake Green was developed with large tasteless villas and mansions from the late '80's. The old lane led to the Grevises' Lady Mill on Coldbath Brook (medieval) and Moseley New Pool (Swanshurst) 1759. The Baptist Church on Oxford Road '84, is built to a design rejected for St. Agnes'; it is Early English with a hall that looks like a chapter-house. St. Agnes' Church '84-94 and 1932, a daughter chapelry of St. Mary's, has a parish that includes part of a neighbour (hence 'Moseley in Yardley'). The Church School in Lett Lane (since School Road) was opened in 1828 and three times enlarged by 1910; the new building replaced it in 1969.

Cross to Upper St. Mary's Row
Former entrance to closed station, detached houses of later '20's. Church Road corner. Road, formerly Ladypool Lane, led down to Lady Pool, medieval fishpond, whose income supported the chapel, like Lady Mill. The pool site is at the entrance to Balsall Heath Park (opened 1892). The lane began as the back lane of one of Moseley's open fields, cultivated in furlong strips. Highfield House (right) built c.1850. Overlap of styles makes dating to a precise decade difficult. Early '80's villas to left.

Corner of Woodbridge Road
Much of the land between Church Road and Stoney Lane belonged to the Andertons, 596 acres of grounds and farmland. Their home was 'The Mansion House', (late Georgian) on a site off Highfield Road and Belle Walk; it survived the sale of the estate for building in 1877 and was demolished about 1890. Down Church Road, much rebuilding and refurbishing - new apartment blocks, villa conversions goes on, for Moseley is still favoured due to its nearness to the City. A vacant site awaits the building of St. Martin's R. C. Church. The warm red-brick terraces at the corner and in Laburnham Grove are c.1860's.

Woodbridge Road, site of Moseley Station
Overgrown ramps and platform blocks still just definable. Station opened 1867-1940. At one time 30 trains a day stopped there. Brighton Road Station is next northward (1875-1940). A timber bridge took Blayney Street over the railway, and gave it the present name; it was replaced in 1894. A plan of 1973 (one of several which came to nothing) would have used the cutting for a road by-pass of the village. The Blayney family owned the land crossed by their street. It and Trafalgar Road were sporadically built up from the 1850's. Laburnham Grove has been finely renovated recently. The Trafalgar Inn (backed by a large skating rink, now demolished) dates from 1875. Caroline Place is c.1860. The Police Station (Worcs. County) was opened c.1900, being built off-street for lack of frontage sites. Beyond it, amid large gardens, was the Arnold School, one of Moseley's many private seats of learning. Mount Street is the back lane that separates the gardens of Alcester and Trafalgar Roads.

Moseley Road
The bends in the highway north of the green are hard to explain. The old Swan Inn and Post Office occupied sites between Blayney Street and the Prince of Wales, which may had been built in the year of the future Edward VII's marriage (1863). Of some unusual villas of that period alongside, several have been or will be replaced by flats. On the three-storey terrace villas opposite (late 1880's) and now in seedy multi-occupation, note the decorative tiles. Here was the Hall (Park) Farm. Five Lands House (c.1850) is a reminder of the open field; five lands or strips were amalgamated to make a quadrilateral holding, probably long before the house was built. Park Hill School replaced bombed villas in 1954.

Park Hill
The Alcester Turnpike was established in 1767. At its junction with an old track beside the Park wall which led to the Rea meadows a tollgate and house were built. The slope down the hill was a holloway, a gorge worn by traffic. The 'Regent Court' is probably of the 1830's, but is much modernised. Park Road was laid out in 1849. A villa thereon became a synagogue in 1964. The gate was removed in 1872.

Brighton Place (1855)
Downhill is Brighton Place. Opposite the tram depot formerly stood 'The Priory', a fancy house with a fancy (and bogus) name. Balsall Heath, once forested, was cleared early but remained common through encroachment upon until 1772. The heath was largely built upon between 1840 - 90. (See my Bygone Balsall Heath) On Moseley Road the flamboyant Library (1896) and Baths (1907) display the city arms, because they were built to show Moseley commuters the advantages of joining Birmingham, as Balsall Heath had done in '91. Much of Kings Norton & Northfield Urban District, including Moseley, entered the City in 1911. The manor and shire bound lay along Belgrave and Highgate Roads. Between 1891 and 1911 the City ended at Edgbaston Road, Trafalgar Road north end, and paths east to Stoney Lane.

Park Hill
This was laid out in 1865. The upper end has villas in eclectic styles of no distinction: 'The Grange' has no right to the name. The gloominess of Victorian houses is of course due to many decades of sooty rain and the growth of trees and shruberies. St. Anne's Church, built with Rebecca Anderton's money on Taylor land, is even more prominent a landmark when viewed from Edgbaston since tall trees gave place to flat blocks below it. Three old bells from the mother church of St. Mary hang in that fine steepled tower.

Chantry Road
This road is named after an unauthenticated chantry supposed to have been founded by the Cistercians hereabout. St. Monica's R. C. School on the edge of the glade was opened in 1970. A little farther down the Keeper's Cottage may be glimpsed off Park Hill.

Moseley Hall Park
The Moseley Park and Pool Estate of 14 acres was opened as a private park in 1899; it had been bought by 9 local businessmen to save the pool and its environs from over-building. They built their houses about it. The pool was made on Moseley Road C19th, probably by James Taylor.

Cannon Hill Park
Cannon Hill Park to which the brook descends, was a gift to Birmingham by Louisa Ann Ryland in 1873; with extensions given by John Holder of Pitmaston and Lord Calthorpe in 1896-7. The Park covers 81 acres.

Salisbury Road
Named after the then Prime Minister, was cut in '96, providing a new highway to Cannon Hill Park and making Moseley Village into a cross-roads. No-one could then have foreseen today's traffic congestion ! The road cut the old Hall Park into two. Good examples of late 90's - early Edwardian house design stand upon it in brick, stone, timber, terra-cotta, and tile cladding.

Hall grounds
Climb beside overgrown brook valley to corner of Hall range. The brick structure of many periods has ancient stone foundations. Was this the Hall built by Sir Richard Grevis ? He probably first enclosed the Park, bounded by Park Hill, Alcester Road, Reddings Road, Amesbury / Salisbury Roads (modern terms) in the early C 17th. He held high office under James I, was lord of Yardley and Solihull and magistrate of Moseley - but not its lord, for it was only one of five Yields of the royal manor of Kings Norton.

A new Hall was built after 1775 by John Taylor II, whose very wealthy manufacturer father had bought the Grevis estates. In the 'Church and King' riots of 1791 Taylor's Bordesley and Moseley Halls were looted and burnt out. Taylor received less compensation than he sought, but he could afford to restore his properties and buy Kings Norton manor from George III. From 1796 he lived at Moseley Hall. The gutted house became the central block of a larger mansion, which is the one we see today.

The range of lower buildings east from the Hall were added by James Taylor in 1838. No members of the family lived in the Hall after his death in '52, though the large Moseley and Moor Green estates remained in Taylor hands. Richard Cadbury, one of the chocolate firm brothers, lived in the Hall, bought it and part of the Park, and gave them to the City in '91 for use as a children's convalescent home. The veranda over the porch, the top floor of the 1838 range, and two extensions on the west and north of the house, were added. Since World War II the Hall has been a haven for old people, and a large Geriatric Unit has been built about it.

Leave Hall grounds by drive to Alcester Road
Brick dovecote and cattleshed are Georgian, like Keeper's Cottage and ice-house in Pool Park. Former 'ha-ha' (sunken wall) alongside path now Reddings Road.

Alcester Road
Opposite King David (Hebrew) School 1965 - formerly St. Luke's Road from 1930. Trees behind school on bank raised to mask deep railway cutting. Dowell's Retreat, moved from Bordesley; original cast-iron door heads (1831) set into gate-pillars.

Almshouses for 16 women. New almshouses for Lench's Trust (Tudor bequest) in Wake Green Road. Post Office, Ordnance Survey office (1920's). Farquhar and Tudor Roads (1895). Site of tramcar depot and Moseley House behind corner block.

Moseley Village
Nothing pre C 19th survives except the old line of the highway round the eastside of the green, the Georgian houses thereby, and the church tower. Though the green as now seen is no older than 1840, it conforms to custom in that only 'street furniture' and public amenities are to be found thereon, no private commercial use.

Neo-Georgian facade of car showroom added to older buildings soon after World War I. Barclays Bank opposite of similar date, built on long-vacant site. Three-storey row above showroom dated 1879; these named villas were later converted to shops. Four old houses survive near the Church, The tallest two were built for John Murray in 1789, bear his & his wife's arms. The lower house next door is nearly as old. Stuccoed 2-storey pet shop was formerly the smith's house; his forge alongside was replaced in the late '80's by the embattled and arched former cab depot, as was the old Bull's Head. A continuous row of cottages like the smith's curved from the forge to the Fighting Cocks, including the old Bull's Head which eventually spread into three of them, and a general store. This early C 19th row had shuttered windows. The four-storey row on their site was built as shops/dwellings in the late 80's and early 90's.

The 'Fighting Cocks' of 1778 (replacing the 'Fox and Dogs') was rebuilt as a large hotel in (?) 1861, backed by gardens and bowling green - later made into a running track. The present Stuartish building in terra-cotta went up in '99. Horse-buses plied from the inn to central Birmingham from '59 until the railway station opened, ten departures a day. Cabs waited for hire on the east side of the green, where a small shelter was provided. Unloved steam tramcars (City of Birmingham Tramways Co.) came to Moseley in '85; the short locomotive circuited the railed and shrubbed green to hook on to the other end of the trailer for the return journey. Lines were extended to Alcester Lane's End after humped Queensbridge was rebuilt in 1904.; Birmingham Corporation electric cars ran along the route henceforward; Company depot disused, new large depot at then boundary of city, north side of Trafalgar Road.

Victoria Parade replaced park wall, gates & lodge in 1900, a rookery and part of a bluebell wood being lost amid local protest. Behind Smiths' bookshop (1913, bogus half-timbering), the garage/ showroom (1920's) and the United Reformed Church (Presbyterian 1896) is the site of the old Grevis home - Moseley Hall - an Elizabethan mansion in pad-and-panel style with some herring-bone timbering, very much like Blakesley Hall in Yardley. It was demolished in 1848. All houses between Chantry Road and Park Hill date from 1899-early 90's.

King Edward Street was built up in first decade of this century; garden wall and chimney rebuilding has much improved the terraces' appearance. Its origin was an alley flanked by cottages on the south side. Opposite was a Stuart/Georgian mansion incorrectly called 'the Old Manor House', late Victorian home of H. Salt Brassington, local historian and chemist. Provisional dates for present buildings north from King Edward Road are 1890's, 1880's, Tesco's 1970's, white house c.1870, villas of 1860 lying back with 1900 shop-fronts over former gardens, Lloyds Bank early 90's.

Here ends the walk.