Description:: Plan of the Parish of Birmingham taken in the Year 1779 by John Snape. The manuscript original is now lost but a copy printed in 1884 survives. The town of Birmingham appears at the bottom of the Plan minus Deritend and Bordesley which lie on the other side of the parish boundary, marked by the river Rea, in Aston Parish. The town is surrounded to north, west and south by a network of fields except to the north-west of the parish where the unbroken expanse of Birmingham Heath is crossed by the canal.
Plan of The Parish of Birmingham John Snape 1779 MAP/45209 &c
The following minutes of the Overseers of the Poor appear in Birmingham’s Town Book
Old Cross Chambers, Apr 28th 1779
“...At a meeting held here this day it was unanimously resolved that the Overseers of the Poor should be supported in giving their Indemnification to any surveyor or surveyors they shall appoint for the Purpose of procuring a Plan of all the Land in the Parish of Birmingham. ...”
The whereabouts of the resulting plan, ‘taken in the year 1779 by John Snape’, which probably existed as a single manuscript copy, are not known. It was originally held by the Overseers of the Poor, for rating purposes, and the copy was eventually inherited by the Borough Rating Department. In 1884 Plans of Birmingham and Vicinity, Ancient and Modern were published by order of the Public Works Committee of the Town Council of the Borough of Birmingham. The first item in the publication was Snape’s Plan ‘copied, printed and … reduced … from Plans in the Public Offices’. Unfortunately, when the City Librarian approached the Superintendent Rating Officer to look for various items in March 1940, for deposit in the Archives, the original of Snape’s Plan had disappeared. All surviving copies originate from the 1884 printed reduced size copy.
Born in 1737, the son of John Snape of Aston and Mary Taylor of Halesowen, John Snape became a prolific estate and canal surveyor and civil engineer. He took premises in Hospital Street, Birmingham in 1791 and moved to Aston Road in 1805 where he died on 1 January 1816. It is said that he “used a camera obscura of his own construction to enable him to make his work so perfect.”
The map has 16o north of west at the top and covers an area of 3.88km x 6.04km centred on the north side of Spring Hill between Ellen Street and George Street West. The scale of the original plan is not known but the printed version is at a scale of approximately 1:7610. The map is divided into a grid of 96 squares, labelled a to h along top and bottom and 1 to 12 down the sides, presumably to simplify the process of finding individual features or fields. No contemporary key survives.
The built-up area of the town is shown with nominal building plots and nominal buildings. The surrounding fields are all numbered and presumably the map was originally accompanied by a schedule which is also now missing. Around St Paul’s church, consecrated in 1779, the new street pattern is shown overlaying the field pattern.
To the north-west of the parish lies the large open area of Birmingham Heath still predominantly un-enclosed except for a small portion on the western edge at Winson Green. To the west Rotton Park, shown as one large open area on conjectural maps of the medieval and sixteenth century manor, has been enclosed and is now sub-divided into many small fields as have Holme Park and Little Park to the west of the river Rea on either side of Digbeth. Outside of the town most of the property boundaries conjectured in Demidowicz’s map of the medieval manor are apparent in the 1779 field boundaries.
The Plan stops at the river Rea, the parish boundary. Deritend and Bordesley are not shown as they are in Aston parish.
The meandering route of James Brindley’s Birmingham canal which reached the town in 1770 can be seen winding its way towards Wolverhampton through fields and across Birmingham Heath
On the south and west of the town Plots 662 & 663 between the manor house moat and the parsonage moat, Plot 638 by Bristol Street, Plots 195 & 196 by Broad street and the canal, and Plots 210, 213, 214, 456 & 457 either side of Summer Hill and the Newhall branch of the canal are all subdivided into smaller units and appear to be ‘guinea gardens’ or allotments. Similar plots can also be seen on Hanson’s 1778 map.
A growing town requires building supplies. Brick kilns are shown to the south-east of Bristol Street, to the north-west of Suffolk Street (where Brickiln Street is later laid out) and between Summer Lane and Walmer Lane. There are lime kilns by the Newhall arm of the canal to the west of what will become Summer Row.
Heading north-west from the junction of New Street, Ann Street & Paradise Row, Friday Street is the original name for Congreve Street, Consequently, the bridge over the Newhall arm of the Birmingham canal becomes known as ‘Friday Bridge’ and by association the bridge over the later Birmingham Fazeley canal (1793), ‘Saturday Bridge’
The General Hospital, on Summer Lane, here labelled as ‘Infirmary’, finally opened in 1779.
New Thomas Street between Aston Street and Coleshill Street has been renamed Tanter Street.
Catalogue of British Town Maps: 20204