A pot pourri of information about our area

Handsworth Wood is a loosely defined area in the north west of Birmingham. It is also a ward within the formal district of Perry Barr. Located within the metropolitan county of the West Midlands since April 1, 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, it was previously a part of the county of Staffordshire. Handsworth Wood is regarded by estate agents as "upmarket" in comparison to the neighbouring district of Handsworth, but is disadvantaged by its extra distance from Birmingham city centre. The BBC's obesity reduction challenge, Fat Nation, was filmed in Handsworth Wood. It is home to Birmingham City University's 'Hamstead campus'.

The ancient parish of HANDSWORTH, which was formerly part of Staffordshire and now constitutes the north-western corner of the city of Birmingham, covered an area of 7,752 acres lying in roughly equal portions north-east and south-west of the Tame, on land that rises from the river valley (at the 300 ft. level) to 550 ft. in the extreme northeast and south-west corners of the parish. The boundaries of the parish are mostly marked by rivers and roads: the northern part of the parish was bounded by the Queslett road, the Chester road, and College Road from its junction with Kingstanding Road, and from that junction to the Tame the boundary followed the line of the Rycknield Street; the Hockley Brook marks part of the southern boundary, and the Tame, before and after running across the middle of the parish, marks part of the western and eastern boundaries; the remainder of the western boundary is marked by Park Lane. The parish fell naturally into two divisions, the Handsworth division, south-west of the Tame and the Perry Barr division, north-east of it. An urban sanitary authority was set up for the Handsworth division in 1874, and the area became an urban district under the Local Government Act of 1888. This urban district was incorporated into the city of Birmingham in 1911, and comprises Handsworth, Sandwell, and Soho wards. Perry Barr, which had its own churchwarden by 1823 and became a separate civil parish in 1862, came under West Bromwich Rural District until Perry Barr Urban District was created in 1894. In 1928 a little less than 700 acres at the west end of Perry Barr was added to West Bromwich and a narrow wedge of about 300 acres along the Chester road to Sutton Coldfield, the remainder becoming that part of Birmingham which is now Perry Barr and Kingstanding wards. The names of Handsworth parish present some difficulties. Handsworth is the name both for the whole ancient parish and for the southern division or township. The name for the northern township, Perry Barr, appears to have developed as the result of a confusion between the two estates which it comprised, Perry, and Little (or Parva) Barr. These two manors had been closely associated - in 1272 the building of a fence in Perry was said to have injured a free tenement in Little Barr, and in 1327 and 1332 the taxpayers in the two manors were listed together - and at the end of the 14th century they were held together. A court roll of 1459-61 treats them as one manor, and the identification of the two was such that by the 18th century the established form in conveyances was 'Perry Barr or Pury Barr or Parva Barr'. The name Little (or Parva) Barr dropped out of use, Perry Barr being used instead for a time to describe the locality, and Perry being used for the small settlement just north of Perry Bridge and near Perry Hall and Perry Mill. Perry Barr, however, was used also for the whole area north of the Tame, and is still the name of a municipal ward and a parliamentary division which do not extend south of the river; but when a railway station was opened in 1837 on the south side of the river it was named Perry Barr, and by a process of attraction the name has come to be used for the locality immediately north-east of the station, on the opposite side of the river from Perry. Hamstead is an indeterminate area lying on both sides of the Tame and partly inside and partly outside the modern city. The original settlement called Hamstead was probably north of the river, for in the early 13th century an estate in Hamstead (later described as a manor) was held of Perry manor, which appears to have been limited to the northern banks of the Tame. A different estate, known for a time as Hamstead manor, which lay south of the river and centred on Hamstead Hall, pictured below, was part of Handsworth manor.                                                       On either side of the Tame were meadows, and, beyond them, arable fields which were once open but were mostly inclosed in the 16th and 17th centuries. The southern part of the parish, along the Holyhead road and Heath Road, and the northern part of Perry Barr township were relatively high and barren, and formed Handsworth Heath and Perry Common. South of Hamstead Bridge a considerable area of woodland was whittled away in the second half of the 19th century to make room for the residential area still known as Handsworth Wood. West of this was a park, perhaps that owned by the lords of Handsworth manor in the 13th century; from the 16th century there was a park attached to Hamstead Hall, and the name survives in Park Farm; the park had been disparked by 1798, and where the land has not been built over it is now used for agriculture and as a golf course. Before suburban development took place there, the population of Handsworth and Perry Barr lived in widely dispersed farms and cottages, without a village centre. There was a number of groups of dwellings, hardly large enough or concentrated enough to rank as hamlets, on the Holyhead road, at Birchfield End, Perry, Old Oscott, Queslett, Hamstead, and (outside the modern city boundary) at Newton End; near the church, at the centre of the southern division of the parish, were the rectory and a few cottages. From the 16th century the mills along the various water-courses of the parish afforded opportunity for minor industry. The establishment of Matthew Boulton's factory at Soho in the years 1761-4 began a new phase in Handsworth's history, as in England's, but it was rather the fact that he and James Watt made their homes there that indicated the lines of Handsworth's modern development. At about this time some large houses were being built nearby on Handsworth Heath. The inclosure of most of the heath in 1793 encouraged further building there, and by 1840 the southern part of the parish, from Birchfield Road along Heathfield Road and the Holyhead road to Rookery Road, had become a suburb with the same sort of social standing as Edgbaston, though without Edgbaston's safeguards against future degeneration. In the next twenty years the area of suburban development in Handsworth extended very little, though the houses within it became more numerous. The opening of Perry Barr station (1837) and Handsworth and Smethwick station (1854) encouraged the northward and westward expansion of this area. By 1888 the area of suburban development covered about half of Handsworth Urban District, reaching north through Handsworth Wood and as far as Perry Bridge: in these districts the houses were mostly large and widely spaced, but along the Holyhead road and near Soho Park (by then built over) such houses had given place to meaner dwellings. In 1888 there remained a few gaps in the suburban belt of Handsworth: they lay between Birchfield Road and Aston Park, between the Holyhead road and the Great Western railway, and adjacent to Victoria Park (itself preserved as an open space when purchased by the local authority) on its south and west. These gaps were also filled in, mainly with working-class houses, in the next 25 years. The movement of workingclass families into Handsworth and the results of the builders' efforts to meet their needs can be traced in the character of the houses in southern Handsworth and in the figures published in the census reports: the population of Handsworth (excluding Perry Barr) showed a steady but relatively unspectacular increase from 2,157 in 1801 to 14,359 in 1871 and then began to rise more strikingly, especially between 1891 and 1901, although the built-up area did not expand much between 1888 and 1914. Between 1914 and 1938 housing estates were built along the right bank of the Tame north of Handsworth Wood and north of the Holyhead road where it leaves the city. Even so, the main increase in the population of the Handsworth division of the parish was over by 1911, the building of new houses there being roughly balanced by the decrease in population of the older streets, and there was still some open land in the north-west in 1961. Sandwell ward, which includes this area, had in 1931 and in 1951 one of the lowest population densities in the city. By 1961 a corporation housing estate at Birchfield which included three sixteen-story tower blocks of flats as well as lower houses and maisonettes, was nearing completion.                                                                   

 PLACES OF INTEREST                                                                                           Local amenities include: King Edward VI Handsworth Girl's Grammar School and Handsworth Grammar School, Soho Road, St. Mary's Church, Handsworth and Handsworth Park.                                                                                                            The local library for the area is in Hawthorn House, pictured above.               

 Birmingham historian Dr. Carl Chinn noted that during WW2 the boundary between Handsworth and Handsworth Wood marked the line between being safe and unsafe from bombing, with Handsworth Wood being an official evacuation zone.        

LOCAL POLITICS                                                                                                     Handsworth Wood electoral ward comprises part of Handsworth and nearly all of Handsworth Wood. The ward was formerly known as Sandwell Ward. The ward is presently represented by three Labour councillors in the Birmingham City Council; Gurdial Singh Atwall, Paulette Hamilton and Narinder Kooner. Handsworth Wood has adopted a Ward Support Officer with the current holder of the title being Joy Hazel.  

                                                                                                                                        CENSUS of POPULATION - HANDSWORTH WOOD 2001                          According to the 2001 Population Census there were 25,276 people resident in Handsworth Wood. 22.7% of people were aged under 16, 60 .1% were aged between 16 and 59, while 17.2% were aged over 60. The minority ethnic population made up 67.1% (16,975) of the ward’s population, compared with 29.6% for Birmingham. 67.0% of households were owner occupied and 16.3% were rented from either the local authority, housing association or other registered social landlord. The remaining 16.7% of households rented privately or lived rent free. The Census found that 10,960 (61.0%) of the population aged 16 to 74 were working or seeking work, this compared with 60.4% for Birmingham.

 

THE WYRLEYS of HAMSTEAD HALL

In 1228, William de Wirleia was Rector of the church of Hunnesworth, and so continued until his death nineteen years later. This is the earliest record of a Wyrley, so named resident in Handsworth. Robert, the earliest named ancestor, lived in the reign of Henry III, followed by William, who served on a Inquisition with Thomas de Hamstead in 1276. In 1279, he sued Richard, son of Henry of Perry for two-thirds of the manor of Perry, and four years later this was conceded to him.

 

Guy de Wyrley was sometimes called Guy de Hamstead. De Hamsteads are not recorded after the end of the thirteenth century. It is possible, therefore, that they and the Wyrleys were kinsmen - the territorial name being used in earlier days, and the family name coming into common usage at a later date. In the subsidy Roll of 1332, Robert appears resident in Handsworth while his father, John, is found in the Perry and Little Barr schedule, making the same contribution as John of Perry, Lord of the manor.

A Roger de Wyrley was granted Holford Mill with Fishery in the River Tame, by John Botetort, in 1358, and eleven years later, was sued by Henry de Morwode, the parson, for conspiracy. Although nothing is known about the Wyrley dwelling house at this time, the Episcopal Registers of Lichfield indicate that in the fourteenth century the Wyrleys were allowed a private chapel in their family home. The Kalendar for January 1360 records that the bishop had granted to Roger de Wyrley a licence to celebrate Mass in his overtories or household chapels at Honnesworth and at Tybinton (Tipton) for a term of two years.

An impression of the status of the Wyrley family and the extent of their estates in Elizabethan times can be gained from a marriage settlement made in 1592 between John Wyrley of "Hampsted" and Edward Holte of Duddeston in confirmation of marriage between Humphrey Wyrley, son and heir apparent of John, and Katerin Holte, daughter of Edward.

Edward Holte was to pay 700 marks and "diverse goods" to John Wyrley who, in return, covenanted to settle part of his estate on his son. This was to include "that capital message and farm of Holford called Holford House and all lands and tenements adjoining same", also the hammer mill in Holford with waters, streams and pools belonging to it and pastures and meadows in Perry Barr. Humphrey was in addition to have rights to half the corn mill called Perry Mill with its dams, steams, etc. John Wyrley r etained for his own use the fishing rights in the waters of both mills. Settlement was made on Humphrey of lands and pastures in Great Barr and Wednesbury after the death of Dorothy, widowed mother of John Wyrley, who held these for her lifetime. Finally, the inheritance after the death of John Wyrley himself was legalised. This included long lists of named meadows and woods, "Hampsteed Mylles", the blade mill and "the capital house of Hampsteed called Wyrley's Hall with all barns, stables, houses, gardens, orchards, hop-yards, courts, fold yards and backside to the same belonging". Provision was made for Goodith, John's wife, if she outlived him, and very involved arrangements made to cover the eventualities of either of the young couple dying before the age of 22 or before producing a male heir. If Humphrey died before reaching 22 and without a male heir, any daughters were to share between them £233.6s8d but if Katerin were to die, her father Edward Holte, was to be paid £233.6s8d at "his new dwelling house at Duddeston".

In 1680, Sir John Wyrley bought the manor of Handsworth from Richard Best and rebuilt the first manor house. Sir John was followed by his nephew, Humphrey Wyrley. His daughter, Sybil, married Dr. Peter Birch. They had two sons, Humphrey and John, who both adopted the name Wyrley-Birch and who both died childless. The estate eventually passed by will to a distant relative, George Birch of Harborne. In '776, he married Ann Lane, grand-daughter of Mary Wyrley, and he became the last lord of the manor. In 1819, the greater part of the estate was sold to William, Earl of Dartmouth of Sandwell Hall, West Bromwich.