Description:This rare surviving manuscript tracing of Thomas Hanson’s 1778 Plan of Birmingham was used to plot features added to the town up to 1781. It appears to be the survey upon which Hanson’s new Plan of Birmingham was based. It shows the position of the world’s first effective steam-powered mill, erected in 1779 at the bottom of Snow Hill by the junction with Lionel Street.
Plan of Birmingham Thomas Hanson c.1781 MAP/669826
This is a manuscript tracing of Thomas Hanson’s 1778 Plan of Birmingham with the addition of the preliminary survey for his 1781 Plan. Although it shows the date ‘1778’, traced from the original map, it exhibits some features that postdate his 1778 Plan.. The illustrations of public buildings have not been traced from the 1778 Plan.
As with the 1778 Plan, this map is aligned with north [more accurately 20 east of north) at the top of the map which covers an area 2.37 kilometres by 1.82 kilometres centred on the west side of High Street between Bull Street and Union Street.
The tracing has been folded three times and has at some time separated at the folds into eight pieces which have subsequently been reconstructed by attachment to a transparent backing leaving some slight gaps where the creases had been.
Cheapside and Moseley Street are shown, laid out and partly developed, passing through the districts of Bordesley and Deritend and ending at the river Rea. New domestic buildings are shown on Cheapside and Lombard Street
In 1778 the twice yearly horse fair was moved from Ann Street to the south of the junction of Smallbrook Street, Suffolk Street and Exeter Row, now labelled Horse Fair on the tracing, at the end of the street then called Brick Kiln Lane (later to be called Horsefair). New domestic housing appears on Brick Kiln Lane and Thorp street. Where Suffolk Street meets Easy Row and Paradise Row the Navigation Office is shown next to the canal terminus and at the other end of Easy Row Mr Baskervill’s house is named.
In the newly laid out streets to the north-west of the Colmore’s Newhall estate additional domestic buildings are shown in Church Street Mary Ann Street, Fleet Street, Caroline Street and Lionel Street. Some now have names: Caroline Street, St Paul’s Square, Mary Ann Street, Brittle Street, Fleet Street and Water Lane. The latter two streets names appear confusing when compared to today’s street layout since on this map Fleet Street runs to the east off Ludgate Street (Ludgate Hill) and Water Lane (later Water Street) runs west. The same arrangement persists in his 1781 map but is changed by his 1785 map to the present layout. On the eastern edge of the estate two new wharves, Bloomfield & Henshall’s, are shown alongside Great Charles Street.
In the area just north of Lionel Street, between Livery Street and Snow Hill, the world’s first effective steam-powered mill is shown. With an engine designed by Matthew Wasbrough of Bristol, who fitted a flywheel, and modified by James Pickard of Birmingham, who replaced Wasbrough’s rack and pinion drive with a connecting rod and crank, even James Watt, who was not known for his fulsome praise of competitors, admitted that ‘it does very well’. The engine, erected in December 1779 and modified in November 1780, ran a rolling mill but also offered power-to-let for grinding, lapping and polishing.
In the Weaman estate (later the gun quarter) new domestic buildings appear on Loveday Street, and Prices Street.
A new street appeared to the west off Walmer Lane or Lancaster Street. Brick Kiln Street crossed to the as-yet-unlabelled Staniforth Street between York Street and the unlabelled Potter Street.. New buildings are shown on Walmer Lane. Lancaster Street and Brick K|iln Street and across Aston Road in Laurence Street
The following feature have been omitted:: The Jews Burying Ground, off Bath Row, a Timber Yard in New St., the Machine on Snow Hill, and an unidentified stream between Water St. and Lionel St. and the street names of.Crooked Lane, Corbetts Alley, Lombard Street, Moseley Street, Bow Street, Bayliss Street, Sand Street, Potter Street and Jennings Street. and Mount Pleasant is omitted from Ann Street or Mount Pleasant
This map was originally thought to be the survey for the much reduced Plan of Birmingham, SURVEY'D BY Thos Hanson, 1781 [MAP/174790]. Subsequent detailed examination of images taken of all known maps of Birmingham held by Record Offices, Libraries and Archives throughout England has revealed that the copy of Thomas Hanson’s 1778 Plan of Birmingham held by Warwickshire County Record Office [CR1086/5] is not a copy of the same Plan of Birmingham, Survey’d by Thomas Hanson, 1778 as held in the Library of Birmingham [MAL/14004], but a revised issue based on this survey map.