 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
From the pub, cross Rea Street and stop on the opposite side corner of Rea Street and Bradford Street. From here you can see much of The Anchor's terracotta frontage. You can read all about our pub in our Pub History section. The red brick building on the opposite side of Bradford Street was erected on the site of the old Greyhound Inn, a pub which also traded as The Postage Stamp for a number of years. Rea Street was once home to five other pubs including the Coppersmiths' Arms and Golden Hammer, names which reflect the industrial nature of the Digbeth in the 19th century. |
|||
|
Walk in a south-easterly direction [away from the city] along the northern side of Bradford Street. After you cross the River Rea you will pass the site of the Queen's Arms, one of almost two dozen public houses that once stood in Bradford Street. Almost all of them have disappeared without trace - names such as the Shepherd's Rest, Warwick Arms and the Boar's Head are only memories for the very oldest of Birmingham's citizens. Stop at the corner of Birchall Street. Built around the same time as The Anchor, the White Swan's frontage is along Bradford Street. However, the original Swan Inn faced the other way and fronted Birchall Street. Like The Anchor, this terracotta public house was designed by the Birmingham architects James and Lister Lea and Sons for Ansell's Brewery. The building plans were drawn up in 1899. The building is a similar design to that of the Dog and Partridge [later known as the Market Tavern] further along Birchall Street. The windows and doors are in the same position but there are subtle differences in the brickwork and corner tower. The centre door on Birchall Street was included for a jug department - an essential watering hole for the factory employees working the hot foundries nearby and, in particular, those slaving in the Patent Enamel Works next door to the pub. This factory, with its frontage on Bradford Street, dominated the area between Birchall Street and Rea Street. The White Swan served as the factory's key watering hole for many decades. |
||||
 |
Park Works on the opposite side of Birchall Street was erected in 1908-9 to the designs of J.G.Dunn for Henry Shaw and Sons. The building may be removed as part of the regeneration of Digbeth and Deritend. Continue in a north-easterly direction along Birchall Street and Chapel House Street until you reach Deritend High Street. The reason that Chapel House Street is named such is there was a church on the corner with the High Street. The church of St.John the Baptist was founded in the late 14th century for the Aston parishioners living in the locality. Deritend and Bordesley were, up until relatively recent times, part of Aston not Birmingham. |
|||
|
Permission was granted and a chaplain installed to conduct divine services for those who lived some distance from the parish church at Aston and could not attend St.Martin's in winter because of the river. The chaplain was paid £5 per annum by the Deritend guild, the same sum that was paid to another priest who acted as a teacher. The original church was a small rectangular structure that featured a steeply-pitched roof. This was replaced in 1735 with an edifice described by J.W.Bloe as a "rectangular brick building with tall round-headed windows and a tower of two stages surmounted by a balustrade with urns at the angles." Although restored between 1881-91, the building was not in use in 1939. It was in this year when the parish and benefice were united with St.Basil of Deritend. Sold to the local authorities before the outbreak of the Second World War, the building was hit by a bomb and later demolished. |
||||
 |
Across the High Street is the imposing frontage of the Devonshire Works established here in 1902 by Sir Alfred Bird to produce the famous Bird's Custard. The building has some lovely features - look out for the ships made from tiles in the ornate gable. The parapet of the building is shaped like a pie crust which, naturally, was awaiting a good dollop of Bird's custard. It was Sir Alfred Bird's father, Alfred Bird senior, who started the business. In 1837, at the age of 24, he opened an experimental chemists shop in Bull Street. |
|||
|
Alfred Bird had only recently married his wife, Elizabeth, who suffered from digestive troubles. She was unable to tolerate eggs, or yeast-based products, including bread. However, she had a penchant for custard which conflicted with her dyspepsia. Accordingly, in 1843 Alfred hit on a yeast substitute which he called Bird's Fermenting Powder, later known as baking powder. The new product however did not prove to be second best. Indeed, tests showed that it produced superior bread, cakes and buns, ones of a much lighter texture than by the traditional use of live yeast. Yet, Alfred was still striving to produce a custard that his wife would be able to eat. His eggless custard was to form the basis of a hugely successful business. |
||||
 |
The new invention was based on cornflour and, in many ways, performed better than its natural counterpart. Inexpensive yet highly nutritious, it was simple to make and there was no danger of the custard turning into scrambled eggs in the saucepan! Alfred Bird tested the market with his new product and demand soon outstripped supply. Bigger premises and more employees were needed. He offered his staff the best wages and conditions in Birmingham, but in return, he expected total dedication to his own inflexible standards of perfection. In promoting the baking powder, Bird's became the first company to use free promotional calendars as an advertising platform. Following successful tasting tests of fresh bread made with the baking powder by the head of the War Department, the Duke of Newcastle, Bird's received an order to supply the product to the armed forces. The company went from success to success. It was Alfred Bird's son who further developed the company. He introduced many new products including Blancmange Powder in the early 1870's and Jelly Crystal Powder in 1895. Further increases in production meant the construction of the new factory in Digbeth High Street. Eventually in 1947, Bird's became part of the General Foods Group which took control of the company away from Digbeth. Alfred Jnr was a colourful character and committed cyclist. He was one of the first to use Charles Dunlop's new pneumatic tyres, and the record time for the journey by tricycle from Land's End to John O'Groats is still in the name of Alfred Bird Jnr. |
|
Using the pedestrian crossing to safely cross the High Street, walk along the frontage of Devonshire House until you reach the corner of Gibb Street. You can take a stroll along Gibb Street to see how the Custard Factory has been converted into a complex of creative workshops, studios and retail outlets. Notice too the gigantic Green Man, created in 2002 by the Zambian-born sculptor Tawny Gray. Walk back to Deritend High Street and turn left where, in a few yards, you are on the junction with Heath Mill Lane. The Heath Mill was recorded in the early 16th century. In the mid-17th century the leaseholder, John Cooper, was forced to rebuild the mill as he had been accused of raising the water level to such a degree that wagons were unable to cross the ford where the River Rea crossed Deritend High Street. Over the years, the mill was used to grind corn but was also used as a blade mill. Indeed, the property became known as Wooley's Mill when the sword cutler James Wooley operated the building during the early-mid 19th century. |
 |
The building on the corner of Heath Mill Lane is a former Lloyd's Bank, an attractive red brick building converted into a musical instruments shop. Adjacent to this is a building of greater antiquity. The former public library was designed by the Birmingham firm of Bateman and Corser. Opening its doors to the public in October 1866, the building became the third free district library in Birmingham. The resource proved to be very popular with the large number of residents living in Deritend at that time. An annual report produced in the year following the opening showed that around 450 people used the newsroom each day and 2113 people had registered to borrow books. The library was enlarged in 1898 and the ecclesiastic appearance was harmonised with the original design featuring perpendicular windows and stone dressings. The library closed in 1940 and, in 2003, was restored and modified in order to create a conference centre and exhibition space. |
|
Cross Heath Mill Lane and stand outside the Old Crown Inn. This timber-framed building is the oldest secular building in Birmingham. It is not, as suggested by the pub sign in Heath Mill Lane, a building that dates back to 1368. Recent research by Stephen Price, Nicholas Molyneux and George Demidowicz has revealed the building to be the Guildhall and School of the Guild of St. John the Baptist of Deritend. Earlier research had suggested that the building was constructed as a Manor House. The building was scrutinised by Henry VIII's topographer, John Leland, when he visited Birmingham in 1536. He described it as 'a mansion house of tymber.' It is also thought that Queen Elizabeth stayed overnight using the gallery chamber bedroom. The building was the last stronghold in the town to fall during the English Civil War when, in 1643, Prince Rupert was sent to punish the disloyal Birmingham bladesmiths who worked in the area and restore Royalist authority. He entered Deritend from the Stratford Road but met stiff resistance. Street fighting ensued and Digbeth's industrialists fought on the thresholds of their homes and factories. Many of them were put to the sword and their property destroyed. Fortunately, this building was spared, along with The Red Lion, another timber-framed building later moved to Cannon Hill Park. |
 |
In 1684 the building was divided into two properties by Richard Dickson who opened it as The Old Crown Inn. As a alehouse, the Old Crown Inn would have served beers to the many workers who toiled at the mills and forges established along the River Rea. In addition, food and stabling would have been offered to the weary travellers arriving from the south of the expanding town. In 1848, the antiquary Joshua Toulmin-Smith began a restoration programme of The Old Crown Inn, during which the drinking water well was discovered in the courtyard. He completed the restoration in 1862 and between this date and 1925, the pub remained in the hands of private tenants or landlords. However, in 1925 the pub was acquired by the Holt Brewery Company. Ownership of The Old Crown Inn was transferred to Ansell's Brewery in 1966 when they took over Holts. It was in May 1992 that The Old Crown Inn finally closed and was left in a state of disrepair. |
|
Patrick and Ellen Brennan acquired the pub in July 1993 and initiated a restoration programme. Following a £1.7m restoration project, the Old Crown Inn was re-opened in June 1998 by Sue Anderson, Lord Mayor of Birmingham. Patrick has since been presented with the Forward Prize by the Birmingham Civic Society in recognition of the achievement and 'exemplary' restoration. Continue along the High Street towards the Rainbow public house on the corner of Adderley Street. You walk past a row of four shops. Look above the shop frontages to admire an attractive red brick and terracotta facade, the work of J.H.Hawkes and Son in 1906. The adjacent pair of shops [divided by the entry] were erected in the mid-19th century. |
 |
The next building is deceptive. It was formerly the St Edmunds' Boys' Home. Behind this is the architectural oddity [pictured to the left]. Featuring a fine Roman campanile, the structure was built privately as the chapel of a hostel for working boys by Father John Lopes. He was an Anglo-Catholic clergyman who in 1915, before the building was finished, joined the Church of Rome. The small basilican church was never used for services. Indeed, it has always served secular purposes. Continue to the next row of shops. These were built around 1860. Notice the street sign that marks the boundary between Deritend and Bordesley, both parishes were originally part of Aston and not Birmingham. Rebuilt with Gothic elements, The Rainbow was rebuilt in the mid-1870's though a pub of this name has traded on the corner of Adderley Street for 200 years or more. For much of the 20th century, the pub was operated by Atkinson's brewery of Aston. |
|
Turn left into Adderley Street and continue under the railway arches. The Adderley family owned an extensive tract of land around this part of Birmingham and this street is named after them. Charles Adderley, who would later become the first Lord Norton, owned much of the area to the north at Duddeston and Vauxhall. Indeed, he donated the land for Birmingham’s first public park in 1856. The ancestral home of the Adderley family was Hams Hall near Coleshill. The first Charles Adderley bought the original hall, an equerry to King Charles I. Following a major fire in 1890, the hall was demolished and rebuilt in the village of Coates in Gloucestershire at the whim of the shipping magnate, Oswald Harrison. When you emerge from the second railway arch, look behind you. A clue to the former role of the railway station is revealed in the brickwork. Bordesley Station was opened in 1846 when the Birmingham and Oxford Railway was built. The railway company merged with the Wolverhampton and Dudley Railway to form the Great Western Railway in 1848. When it was constructed, the station was close to the edge of the expanding town. Cattle were brought by rail trucks to the station and then herded down Bradford Street and Cheapside to the slaughter houses close to the markets around St.Martin's. |
 |
A few yards past Upper Trinity Street is the Waggon and Horses, one of the oldest surviving public houses in Bordesley. Many of the neighbouring taverns in this part of Birmingham were completely rebuilt but the Waggon and Horses is one of the originals. Remodelled rather than rebuilt, it shares some of the characteristics of another survivor - the Spotted Dog in Digbeth's Meriden Street. The Waggon and Horses is a slightly later building but this is simply because it is a little further from the centre of Birmingham. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries Birmingham gradually “moved out” during the march of the industrial revolution. An early recorded licensee of the Waggon and Horses is John Muddyman, a coal and corn dealer turned brewer who produced homebrewed ales in the pub's back yard. In the 19th century it was difficult for publicans to make a living solely from sales of beer and most had a second trade. In this case, the business not only formed part of the Muddyman family’s income but also provided the name of the pub. The sign of the Waggon and Horses was fairly common as they were the principal means of transportation before the advent of the railways. Many pubs and inns acted as agents and all manner of goods could be left there where they would either be forwarded or collected by locals to whom they were addressed. The Waggon and Horses became a relatively early target for the emerging large brewery concerns and in the 1870’s Showell's Brewery moved in to secure the pub for themselves. The Langley-based brewery initiated improvements to the newly-acquired Waggon and Horses and, in September 1878, the company commissioned William Jenkins, an architect and surveyor based at 34 Bennett's Hill to draw up plans to improve the existing building. Birmingham-based breweries such as Ansell's had already committed themselves to rebuilding many of their pubs but thankfully Showell's opted to retain the old Waggon and Horses. William Jenkins restructured the floor space, installed larger windows and created a rear smoke room and outdoor department. This jug counter was accessed by its own door and was a key part of the pub’s business. The men working the furnaces in local factories would send a "runner" to the pub to fetch essential liquid refreshment. |
|
Incidentally, the other pubs that once stood in Adderley Street were the Adderley Arms Inn, Bricklayer's Arms and a beerhouse called The Queen. Only the Waggon and Horses has survived. Turn into Liverpool Street and, after a few yards, turn left into Allcock Street. If you walk along this street during the week you'll hear a good deal of banging, thudding and other noises emanating from small factories. The industrial resonance is welcome for it is heartening to see that Birmingham is still engaged in a wide variety of manufacturing. Continue past Hack Street and walk under the railway arch. You can catch a glimpse of our next port-of-call as you walk down Allcock Street. |
 |
At the end of Allcock Street, turn right and walk along Heath Mill Lane. After a few yards look to the right for St.Basil's Centre. This is housed in the former St.Basil's Church that was built in 1910-11 to the designs of A.S.Dixon. Architectural historian Andy Foster has described this building as "the finest example of his Arts and Crafts primitivism". The Romanesque-style brick building is plain from the outside but the interior is full of Italian charm and surprise. Pictured to the left, the apse has marble panelling, a mosaic semi-dome and a patterned stone floor. Continue in a north-easterly direction along Heath Mill Lane until you reach the crossroads. The Forge Tavern on the corner of the junction was once a popular Ansell's jug-and-bottle pub that served the local factories. The pub and adjacent factory are located on land once occupied by the Heath Mill - hence the name of the road. Go straight ahead across the junction and walk along Great Barr Street until you reach the canal bridge. Notice the railway bridge between the canal bridge and the Forge Tavern. Built in the early 1850's, this bridge was never actually completed due to early railway competition. The canal bridge over the Warwick and Birmingham Canal was designed by the company's surveyor Edward John Lloyd. The shallow arched span is unusual in that it is made of cast iron plates. This can be appreciated by walking down to the tow path. Indeed, to enjoy another part of the walk you should follow the canal tow path under the bridge and walk in a north-westerly direction for approximately 250 yards. On the opposite side of the canal you will see the basin and wharf of The Bond, a fascinating Victorian inland waterway development erected on the site of an old gasworks. The large warehouse of alternate red and blue bricks was built in 1884-6 by Edwin Shipway for the canal carriers Fellows Morton and Co. |
|
Retrace your steps back to the canal bridge, over to the Forge Tavern and walk in a north-easterly direction along Fazeley Street. This brings you to the front of The Bond where you can see some of the buildings associated with the gasworks. The cottages along the frontage to Fazeley Street date from the early 19th century. The original entrance can be traced beneath the bricked-up lunette window. Notice the old letterbox embedded in the wall. The building next to the current entrance is a later construction designed by Sidney H. Wigham in 1898. On the opposite side of Fazeley Street stands a chapel designed by George Ingall in 1876. Foundation stones can be seen on a building that has not been treated kindly over the years. To the left, on the corner of Floodgate Street, stands the former Unitarian Sunday School designed by A.B.Phipson. Turn the corner and walk along Floodgate Street. |
 |
Originally called Water Street, Floodgate Street was a tranquil lane in the early 19th century. Tranquil that is until it rained heavily on Windmill Hill between the Lickeys and the Clent Hills, the source of the Rea. The name Floodgate Street serves as a reminder that Brummies earning a living here had to occasionally harness the water source that provided their main source of power. Located on the corner of River Street is the former Floodgate Street Medical Mission. The Quaker Joel Cadbury was its first secretary when it opened in 1879. This was where Victorian residents would queue for free treatment at Dr.Crabbe's surgery. There used to be half a dozen public houses in Floodgate Street but only one survives. The pub on the corner of Little Ann Street is now called the Floodgate Tavern after a spell being known as Horan's Tavern. However, the pub was originally known as the Swan. It evolved into the White Swan in the early years of the 20th century. Can you spot the difference between this photograph and the present building? |
|
Featuring an extra storey, the above photograph dates from the late 1930's - the name of Charles Francis Henson is above the corner door. He was the landlord between 1936 and 1941 and later between 1946 and 1948. The gap may have been the result of being called up for service during the Second World War. His wife Mary held the licence during this period - that is probably her pictured looking out of the right-hand doorway. The Swan first appeared in Robson and Wrightson's 1839 Trade Directory for Birmingham. At that time there was another public house called the Spring Gardens Tavern and, as its name suggests, was located in a pretty haven close to the River Rea. The Spring Gardens Tavern catered for those on short boating excursions that departed from Apollo House in Moseley Street. The wooded New Spring Gardens featured footpaths, grottoes and arbours. With such a pleasant river environment on the pub's doorstep, it is easy to see why Richard Grimmitt chose the Swan for the name of his beer house. The Swan was built on land belonging to the Trustees of King Edward VI Grammar School. Early licensees would have been tenants paying an annual rent to the Trustees. William Jenkins, the man who worked on the Waggon and Horses earlier in the walk, also redesigned the Swan in 1883. |
 |
Continue along Floodgate Street until the junction with Moores Row. South Birmingham College now occupies the former Floodgate Street School, a large brick structure designed by Martin and Chamberlain in 1890-1. Notice the large windows in the gables that allowed light to pour into the school. The windows facing Moores Row feature some fine terracotta tracery. Continue along Moores Row and turn left into Milk Street. The college has also utilised the old warehouse on the corner of Digbeth and Milk Street. This was constructed in 1869 for Thomas Fawdry. Rebuilt in the Victorian period, the Big Bull's Head on the opposite corner has two hundred years of history. Digbeth and Deritend High Street once had an incredible number of inns and taverns. In addition to the Old Crown earlier visited on the walk, the White Hart was well established as a favourite haunt with local blacksmiths in the 17th century. The historian William Hutton claimed that The White Hart was the source of the plague outbreak in 1665. Other pubs to open along Digbeth were The Cock and Redd Lyon, The Swan, The Garland and The Starr. By 1767 there were 32 licensed public houses along Digbeth and Deritend High Street, some of which prospered until relatively recent times. It was Edwin Ward who re-modelled the Big Bull's Head in the 1880's. His daughter Dorothy went on to become a famous actress and singer. The image to the left is the front of a postcard when she headlined in 'The Cinema Star' at The Prince of Wales Theatre in November 1914. The other leading names were Edward Lewis, Harry Welchman and Fay Compton. Dorothy Ward's legacy is such that her 1917 recording of William Dillon and Harry von Tilzer's "I Want a Girl" was featured in BBC Radio One's all-time great records of the Millennium played by John Peel at the end of 1999. |
|
Cross the road and walk along Rea Street to return to The Anchor. We hope you have enjoyed this amble around historic Digbeth and Deritend. Don't forget you can try one of the other walks we have put together to make your visit to The Anchor all the more enjoyable. |
|
|