Billesley Common
Billesley Common is a recreational area of public open space in South Birmingham, England. It is situated between the suburbs of Moseley and Yardley Wood. Birmingham's rugby union team, Moseley Rugby Football Club of the National League 1 are leasing part of the common from Birmingham City Council for their pitches and clubhouse; the ground had a seating capacity of 1,450 in the original stand. This has since been completed. Birmingham Moseley's sister club Moseley Oak have played at Billesley Common since 2008. In 2016, Birmingham Bulldogs announced. Billesley Common was first mentioned in 1774 as being'common wasteland'. Victor Skipp; the History of Greater Birmingham - down to 1830. V. H. T. Skipp. ISBN 0-9506998-0-2
Sarehole Mill
Sarehole Mill is a Grade II listed water mill on the River Cole in Hall Green, England. It is now run as a museum by the Birmingham Museums Trust, it is known for its association with J. R. R. Tolkien and is one of only two working water mills in Birmingham, with the other being New Hall Mill in Walmley, Sutton Coldfield. Built in 1542 on the site of a previous pool, it was once known as Biddle's Mill after the name of an early owner. In 1727 it was described as High Wheel Mill; as early as 1755, the mill was leased by Matthew Boulton, one of the pioneers of the Industrial Revolution and leading figure of the Lunar Society for scientific experimentation. It is believed; as well as milling grain it has been used for grinding bones for fertiliser, metal rolling and wire drawing. The current building dates from 1771 and was in use until 1919. Thereafter it fell into a state of dereliction. A local community campaign to save the mill was launched when demolition was mooted, was successful with the mill being restored in 1969.
Sarehole Mill is open from Easter to the end of October, 12:00 till 16:00 every day except Monday unless Monday is a national holiday in which case it is open, entry £3.00, children under 16 free. In April 2012 the mill pond was drained to repair the sluice gates, in the winter of 2012–13 the silted mill pond was dredged. In 2012/2013 Sarehole Mill underwent a £375,000 overhaul of the roof, millpond, water wheel and machinery were restored to produce flour again. A newly constructed outdoor bread oven is used to bake bread using the flour ground on site. Sarehole Mill has a team of 15 volunteer gardeners and eight volunteer guides. Millers are at work every Sunday if there is enough water. Sarehole Mill produces wholemeal flour, sold in the mill shop; the flour is used by local restaurants and bakers. In 1852 the water wheels at Sarehole Mill were supplemented by a single cylinder steam engine. Although water would have been the primary energy source powering the mill, the addition of a steam engine would have ensured uninterrupted operation of the mill.
The original steam engine was at some point removed, the current engine is of similar size and capacity, being a single cylinder table engine of 16 hp, albeit in a non-functioning state and of unknown manufacturer. The current engine was installed as part of the restoration of the mill in 1975, it was used by a sweet manufacturer, Smith Kendon Ltd, at their factories in England and Messina, where it was used up until 1948. It was donated to the Birmingham Museum of Science and Industry in 1952 before being moved to Sarehole. J. R. R. Tolkien lived within 300 yards of the mill at around the turn of century, between the ages four and eight, would have seen it from his house; the locale at that time was rural Worcestershire countryside. He has said that he used the mill as a location in The Lord of the Rings, for the Mill at Hobbiton. In an interview with Guardian journalist, John Ezard in 1966, before the mill's restoration, Tolkien said: It was a kind of lost paradise... There was an old mill that did grind corn with two millers, a great big pond with swans on it, a sandpit, a wonderful dell with flowers, a few old-fashioned village houses and, further away, a stream with another mill.
I always knew it would go – and it did. The grounds nearby host the annual Tolkien Weekend event that celebrates the life and works of Tolkien; the mill is part of the Shire Country Park. Birmingham, page 13, Douglas Hickman, 1970, Studio Vista Ltd. Hall Green and Hereabout, John Morris JONES, ed. Michael Byrne 1989 Here and Then – The past of Our District, John Morris JONES, A Guide to the Buildings of Birmingham, Peter Leather, ISBN 0-7524-2475-0 Sarehole Mill Official website Shire Country Park Birmingham Grid for Learning – detailed text by John Morris Jones The Guardian 1991 article on Sarehole titled Tolkien's shire Made in Birmingham Sarehole Mill – Service for schools – Educational teaching sessions and resources at Sarehole Mill Sarehole Mill for Kids – fun and games for children based on Sarehole Mill
Handsworth Park
Handsworth Park is a park in the Handsworth area of Birmingham, England. It lies 15 minutes by bus from the centre of Birmingham and comprises 63 acres of landscaped grass slopes, including a large boating lake and a smaller pond fed by the Farcroft and Grove Brooks, flower beds, mature trees and shrubs with a diversity of wildlife, adjoining St. Mary's Church, Handsworth to the north, containing the graves of the fathers of the Industrial Revolution, James Watt, Matthew Boulton and William Murdoch, the founders of Aston Villa Football Club and the Victoria Jubilee Allotments site to the south opened on 12 June 2010; the completion of a £9.5 million restoration and rejuvenation of Handsworth Park was celebrated with a Grand Re-Opening Celebration led by Councillor Mike Sharpe, the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, speaking from the restored bandstand at 2.00pm on Saturday 8 July 2006, followed by a count down by a large enthusiastic crowd and the release of clouds of confetti. Now we must make the marriage a success."
Handsworth Victoria Park was founded in the 1880s by the Handsworth Local Sanitary Board - a body instituted by the government, led by locally elected citizens, to oversee the supply of clean water and the laying down of sewers for the growing population of the area. As the Civic Gospel of municipal improvement spread from centre of Birmingham into the growing suburban estates of Handsworth, its local government leaders saw a public park as a benefit for the district. Following the setting up of an education board and a free library, the adoption and proper kerbing of roads, street lighting and the construction of sewers, influential voices in the district began to speak of the need for a'lung' in the city, they did not pursue this idea out of expediency or to raise the value of their properties. Such self-interest was present - used unashamedly to strengthen their case among the minded citizens of Handsworth - but opposition to the Park from that quarter was at times so intense that calculative motives alone would not have carried the project through.
The first part of Handsworth Park was laid out to the west of the original London and North Western Railway and was opened on 25 December 1890 despite initial opposition. At a public meeting in the council offices off Soho Road on 11 January 1887, the Rector of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth Dr. Randall, who could be seen as the voice of receding rural Staffordshire against the spreading metropolis of Birmingham, rose amid the uproar to make what the Handsworth News reporter, with irony, called the speech of the evening: "Allow me to say that from my heart I am the last man in the parish to stand between any object, for the welfare of the people of the parish, it is because I don't think it is for the well-being that we should have the park that I lift up my voice against it. We have an agricultural parish, we have some of the finest air in the kingdom, I believe that the park will be more for the benefit of the roughs of Birmingham." This view was described by the reporter as being received with "a perfect howl of dissent, uproar for at least a minute and cries of'shame' followed by alternations of groaning and cheering".
The park is divided into two parts by a working railway line and was the site of Handsworth Wood railway station until 1942. Its western half was landscaped by the award-winning landscape architect Richard Hartland Vertegans who had a liking for broad tree-lined boulevards leading visitors to unexpected prospects. Far from being a disadvantage, the railway running through the completed park would prove consistent with Vertegan's intention, since, to this day, there are people who speak of "never having been to the other side of the park"; the eastern side of Handsworth Park - Victoria Park Extension - was laid out 10 years under the supervision of the local surveyor, Edwin Kenworthy, by the new Handsworth Urban District Council on St. Mary's glebe-land, with the support of a new vicar, the Rev. Prebendary Hodgson, amid a steady downpour of rain declared "open to the people for ever" by the 6th Earl of Dartmouth on 30 March 1898; the completed park contains a cricket ground, leisure centre - built on the remains of Grove House whose estate was bought to create the original park - a children's play-area, a small distinctive building used by the'Sons of Rest' movement founded by Lister Muff in 1927, small monuments and a bandstand built at the Lion Foundry of Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow.
Over the railway bridge you will find a large peaceful looking lake surrounded by plenty of wildlife and flowerbeds filled with colour. Just by the lake there is a new Boathouse; the boats were reintroduced to the lake in June 2009. Thanks to The Handsworth Park Association and a local resident, The Boathouse has a cafe and is open to the public 7 days a week; the Park has its well patrolled by the park rangers and local police. The park was incorporated, with the old Handsworth Urban District - successor to the Handsworth Sanitary Board - into Birmingham City Council in 1911 and was the venue, for many years, of the Birmingham Flower Show and other citywide and national events including dog shows, Girl Guides' and Boy Scout Jamboree. In 1922 The Birmingham Civic Society designed and paid for the creation of a new formal garden which they called a "Sunk Garden" near the Grove Lane entrance; the site of the garden was an irregular hollow, but the executed design carries on the axial line of the park entrance and featured as its centrepiece a bronze sculpture of a child holding a lamb atop a Portland stone plinth.
This was meant to symbolise the historic use of the land as glebe land. The statue wa
Calthorpe Park
Calthorpe Park is a public park in Birmingham, created in 1857 and managed by Birmingham City Council. The park lies in the Sparkbrook Ward of Edgbaston, England, it lies adjacent to and east of the A441 Pershore Road and a short distance south of Five Ways junction and north of Edgbaston Cricket Ground. The River Rea crossed by two bridges; the park takes its name from the Calthorpe family, whose Frederick Gough, 4th Baron Calthorpe provided the land for its creation in 1857, from the Calthorpe Estate. The freehold was signed over by his son, Augustus Gough-Calthorpe, 6th Baron Calthorpe, in 1894; the park was formally opened on 1 June 1857, by Duke of Cambridge. The opening ceremony, which featured a triumphal arch, was recorded in a painting by Samuel Lines Snr. After a lunch at the Town Hall, arriving via a procession though the streets, the Duke, Lord Calthorpe, the Mayor, John Ratcliffe, each planted a Cedar tree; the event was followed by a dinner for the dignitaries and 250 guests at Bee's Royal Hotel, as well as a free concert "for artisans" at the Town Hall, a free ball at a music hall in Coleshill Street and a free meal for 700 soldiers and pensioners at Bingley Hall.
These events were funded by John Ratcliffe. A lodge-house sits at the north-western corner of the park. A bandstand stood near to it. An 1855 statue of Robert Peel which stood in the park is now outside the nearby Tally Ho! police training centre, although the original plinth is still in the park
Adderley Park
Adderley Park is an area in the east of Birmingham, England. Charles Adderley MP donated 8 acres of land to create the park, which he managed from 1855 to 1864, it is served by Adderley Park railway station
Moseley School
Moseley School is a large comprehensive school in the Moseley area of Birmingham, England. The school's main entrance is situated on Wake Green Road and it lies in the parish of St Christopher, Springfield. In the early 21st century, the school is non-denominational with around 1,360 students, two-thirds of whom are boys. 80% do not have English as a first language, over 40% are eligible for free school meals. The March 2016 Ofsted report graded the school as good with good features, at which students make good progress; the school comprises three main buildings on a single campus – a Victorian college built in the 1850s, a state-of-the-art modern building completed in 2012, a newly built sports complex. The history of what is now Moseley School is complicated. In 1838 a private house in Spring Hill, Birmingham, was opened as a training college for Congregationalist ministers under the patronage of George Storer Mansfield and his two sisters Sarah and Elizabeth. Twenty years in 1857, after expansion to include a further three private houses, the establishment, still named Spring Hill College, moved to new, much larger, purpose-built premises on Wake Green Road, in what was rural Worcestershire, some miles south of the city.
This striking Gothic revival building was designed by the architect Joseph James, is noted for its gargoyles. In 1886, the college was closed and a replacement establishment founded in Oxford, known as Mansfield College. Meanwhile, the Wake Green Road buildings were re-opened as the'Pine Dell Hydropathic Establishment and Moseley Botanical Gardens', which entailed the construction of a swimming bath and greenhouses. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the building was commandeered by the War Office for use as a military barracks. After a brief period as an orphanage, the site returned to educational use in 1921 as a teacher-training facility, under the new name of Springfield College. In 1923, the premises were transferred to Birmingham City Council, which opened the Moseley Secondary School, for boys only and with a selective entrance examination. Major Ernest Robinson served as headmaster until 1956; the study bedrooms of the former college were merged in pairs to form classrooms.
The former hydropathic swimming bath was boarded over to serve as the school assembly hall. An extension was built to further classrooms. A feature of the school was that the headmaster would live on the premises, which continued as the practice until 1972; the school changed its name to Moseley Grammar School in 1939. In 1955, the city council opened a separate school, known as Moseley Secondary Modern School, fronting College Road, on what had been a playing field adjacent to the grammar school site; this new school, with Miss Eileen Cohen as headmistress until 1967, was both co-educational and non-selective. It specialised in performing arts such as music. Only a fence separated the two schools, relations between the two sets of pupils were not always peaceful, it was during the headmastership of Bruce Gaskin from 1956 to 1972, that Moseley Grammar School acquired its reputation for academic excellence. It had been known more for its sporting achievements in rugby. In 1968 it acquired a former inn near Abergavenny, known as Old Grouse Cottage, for outdoor activities and field trips, which the current school still retains.
The main school range was designated as a Grade II listed building in the year of Mr Gaskin's retirement. In 1974, after two years of uncertainty, the grammar school and the secondary modern school were amalgamated into a single school; this changed. The combined establishment, known as Moseley School, became one of the largest comprehensives in Birmingham. At least, it inherited the good reputations of its predecessors in their respective fields. Moseley Grammar School had been without a head since 1972, Donald Wilford, headmaster of Moseley Secondary Modern School since 1967, applied for the appointment as head of the merged school. In the event, the job went to an outsider, Alan Goodfellow, on record as being bitterly critical of comprehensive education, he was plagued by ill-health and died in office in 1981. David Swinfen was appointed as head the following year, his ambitious plans, were overwhelmed by events, when the former grammar school building, known since the amalgamation as the West Wing, began falling apart as a result of decades of neglect and under-funding.
In 1986 the roof of the library was declared unsafe halfway through an exam, the entire building was closed and earmarked for demolition – the latter prevented only by Mr Swinfen's speedily organised campaign and the resultant public outcry. By the end of his tenure in 1992, the school had undergone a radical change of character, following the redrawing of its catchment area in 1987/88. Hitherto, Moseley School had taken a majority of its pupils from the white area of Hall Green, but now it took them from the Asian area of Sparkhill; the campaign for the restoration of the West Wing continued for many years. As part of it, in 1995 Mrs Mary Miles, head teacher from 1992 to 2001, authorised the formation of the Moseleians Association, for former students and staff of the grammar school, secondary modern school, comprehensive school, it publishes the twice-yearly Moseleian Gazette, organises regular reuni
