Compiled by Stephen Birch with images from private collection and Birmingham Archives. Over the past week I have been posting old records written just after the First World War concerning about our local area of Erdington. Starting around the High Street and Six Ways area and how some of roads were named and what the sites were before our houses in the late Victorian & Edwardian era were built. We finished yesterday at the Junction of Gravelly Hill & Kingsbury Road and the Church which once stood on the corner. The next chapter will take us through the weekend with what was the most interesting feature of the district and the oldest recorded. This is the story of Salford Bridge and the suburb which was known as Gravelly Hill. The story of Salford Bridge part 1 The first mentions of a bridge over the river Tame at Gravelly Hill was in a lawsuit concerning fishing rights during the reign of Edward I. (1290). It was known then as Scafford Bridge. The old English word Scroef meaning cave or pit, this most probably referred to the caves in the sandstone cliff around that area. There is another mention in early records that a certain Mr. Joseph Hill had in his possession a deed dated 1319 which mentions Shrafforde bridge meadow, also an early map shows an historic road crossed the Tame at this point. The name Salford seems to be a corruption of the word Shrafford from the saxon word meaning Ford by the caves. A couple of hunderd yards from the Ford looking upstream (towards the railway today) was a cliff. In the face of the steep slope and hidden from observers by vegetetation, were two or more holes carved out of the sandstone, giving access to artificial caves of considerable size and depth. These caves were discovered accidentally in the 1800s by children of a local resident of Copely Hill. (The early large houses on Copely Hill topped the topped the cliff.) Afterwards there existance was forgotten again unti the construction of the railway line to Erdington in the 1860s. There is evidence that these caves had been well known in earlier centuries, and they were actually the caves to which the ancient name refers to in 1390. (The Ford by the Caves). Originally known as the Dwarf Holes, a name which survived until their destruction in 1967. In a deed dated 1490, several parcels of lands, crofts, and rents of a Sir Roger Hyllary in fields of Erdington, Aston, and Wytton there is mentioned two crofts of land called Dwarffenolys. (Dwarf Holes). Unfortunately, the Dwarf Holes were very badly waterlogged, and any full exploration was impossible. Over the centuries the floors had become silted up, and their original level considerably below the waterline by the 1860s. A later study of the area concluded that they were by far the oldest product of human hands in the area. Back to the bridge and the river Tame. From a diary account around 1540 the name given is Sharforf Bridge, and again in 1596 as Shrawford Bridge until 1793 when it is known as Stafford Bridge. It is likely to have been a small footbridge with carts using the shallow ford alongside. Stafford Bridge is the name given on the map of 1760 map of Erdington, and the name Salford seems to have been derived from this around 1800. Another map of 1804 clearly shows the name Salford Bridge. Salford bridge was built by the county in 1810, but was both widened and lengthened thirty years later, when the canal was constructed. Previously the road bore to the right at the foot of Gravelly Hill passing immediately in front of the old Erdington Arms and crossed the river fifty yards upstream, where there was a Ford for vehicular traffic, by the side of which was a narrow bridge for foot passengers. Sadly there is no picture showing what the earlier bridge looked like. It is probable that some traces of the paved ford still exist beneath the river today. Continues tomorrow.................. 1. ENTRANCE TO THE DWARF HOLES, GRAVELLY HILL from the Sir Benjamin Stone collection 2. DWARF HOLES GRAVELLY HILL 1895 According to local historians, these caves had strong connection to the Stone Age. A third hole used to lie below the level of the canal towpath, which was covered in 1840. 3. COPELY HILL Looking along the river Tame 4. COTTAGE ON THE TYBURN CANAL 1870 5. HOUSES AT BOTTOM OF GRAVELLY HILL, 1880 with the 1845 canal bridge to the right, and high wall in the distance. Leamington Road, Bridge Road, Woodland Road and shops (Salford Bridge) were built upon the land. 6. OPEN FIELDS IN FRONT OF HOUSES IN COPELY HILL, SLADE LANE, later occupied with houses, works and roads
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 17:30:00 +0000