Description:This Plan of Birmingham, survey’d in the Year 1792, was sculpted (engraved) and published by Charles Pye. The building boom which had started in the 1780’s reached its peak between 1790 and 1792.Despite the reduction in detail compared with previous maps this map shows new estates in every direction, over sixty new streets, six new inns and three new breweries, three new steam engines, a new Brass House, a Post Office, the new cavalry barracks and new canals: the Birmingham Fazeley canal plus its Digbeth branch and the projected Birmingham Worcester canal.
Plan of Birmingham surveyor unknown 1792 MAP/72831
The following advertisement first appeared in Aris's Birmingham Gazette on September 17, 1792
PLAN OF BIRMINGHAM On Monday next will be published A New Plan of the Town; wherein is described all the new Streets, the Course of the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal, the Termination of the Worcester Canal, The Situation of the Barracks new buildings, with every necessary Information to direct Strangers to any Part of the Town, the public Buildings being described in their proper Situations, without any References; and for the Convenience of Proprietors of Buildings, the Streets are described without Shading, in such a Manner that any Person may have their Buildings exhibited on the Plan in their exact Situation. Birmingham, September 17, 1792.
and in the following edition of Aris’s, on September 24, 1792, the same advertisement appeared with the following addition,
Sold by all the Booksellers, and by the Publisher, C Pye, Cheapside, Deritend; at all which Places may be had, the Directory, with the above Plan, Price 2s 6d, Birmingham, September 17, 1792.
It appears that the plan was first produced as an insert for Pye’s Birmingham Directory
This plan was also used in the third edition [3A] of William Hutton's History of Birmingham [1792] and in the first reprint [3B] [1795] and in some editions of the second reprint [3C] 1806
The map has 3o East of North at the top and the borders enclose an area of 3.7km x 2.7km centred on the south-east side of Colmore Row, opposite Livery Street.
This is the first map to reduce detail down to the streets and a few principal buildings with no indication of the built-up area. The map covers a significantly larger area than all previous maps but this is because the growing town covers a larger area. The building boom which began in the 1780s reached its zenith in the first two years of the next decade with new estates popping up all round the town.
In the High Town, Cherry Street was extended to High Street overlaying the existing Corbetts Alley in 1790 and a Post Office opened in New Street in 1783 is shown for the first time, opposite the theatre.
Hurst Street was extended across the new Bromsgrove Street and built by John Wilmore in 1789, on Gooch land at the corner of Inge Street and Hurst Street, the last remaining back-to-back housing remains today as a museum. The southern extension of Brick Kiln Street became known as Bristol Street. The river Rea was straightened south of Deritend bridge and next to the river in 1786 Edward Hastin laid out Rea Street. Henry Bradford’s Bradford Street, Cheapside and Moseley Street were extended across the Rea. And on the Deritend side, Green Street was laid out between Birchole Street and Alcester Street.
Out by Five Ways the Rector of St Martin’s had obtained an Act in 1773 allowing building on the 23-acre plot of Glebe land between Islington [Broad Street], Islington Row and Bath Street. The map shows Tennant Street, Bishopsgate Street, St Martins Street and William Street. The Birmingham Worcester canal, authorised in 1792 but not begun until the early summer, is roughly sketched in, extending from the bend in the Birmingham canal, with a wharf near the top of Cross Street and the canal projected in a curve to cross Bath Row a little further east than its true position. On Colmore land to the south of Holloway Head the projected plan for a grid of streets shown on the map never came to fruition. This area was not developed until the 1840s.
Between the Birmingham canal, Newhall branch, and Easy Hill [Broad Street], off Cambridge Street (not labelled as such), on King Edward’s School land, Charles Norton’s ill-fated projected Crescent housing scheme, original launched in 1788 is shown. His plan for twenty-three houses had elicited no response by 1792. Shown further along Broad Street the new Brasshouse, founded in 1781 had managed to reduce the price of brass from £84 to £56 per ton.
Leaving the Birmingham canal just beyond the Crescent the Birmingham Fazeley canal, authorised by Act of Parliament in 1784 and completed by 1789, crossed the Newhall estate displacing Fleet Street and running alongside Water Street. Next to the canal, between Snow Hill and Water Street, two steam mills are shown, Charles Twigg’s 1779 metal rolling mill and his ex-partner James Pickard’s corn mill and bakery. New Hall itself no longer blocked the development of the estate. After initially resisting efforts to move him Matthew Boulton transferred his warehouse to other premises and the house was finally put up for sale in 1787 with the stipulation that “the whole be pulled down and the material carried away within one month from the time of sale.” New streets between Warstone Lane and St Paul’s church completed the development. Out beyond the Newhall Estate the projected plan for a grid of streets shown on the map between Warstone Lane and Camden Street, on Edward Carver’s land, never came to fruition. At Carver’s death in 1797 the land was sold off in 41 lots.
On the east side of Snow Hill the Birmingham Fazeley canal had temporarily blocked the extension of Loveday Street. A projected plan for a small network of streets shown on Joseph Carles’ land between Bath Street and the canal never came to fruition. Carles died in 1797 but the area was not developed until 1805 when Shadwell Street was laid out. Beyond the canal, to the east of Great Hampton Street a new network of streets was successfully built on Inge land.
New streets filled the space between Lancaster Street and the road to Aston, partly on Holte land, with Legge Street marking Birmingham and Aston’s parish boundary.
Out beyond the boundary at the other side of Aston Street the recently laid out Holte Street and Heneage Street recorded the family connection with Heneage Legge who would inherit the estate in 1794. Leaving the Birmingham Fazeley canal just beyond the Aston road a branch canal descending southward then curved westward towards its terminus on Gooch land near Digbeth.
In 1771 Sir Lister Holte had leased 28 acres of land to the north-east of the town, to Dr John Ash, the driving force behind the General Hospital. When Ash moved from Birmingham, in 1787, his property, together with a further 41 acres, was leased to John Brooke, an attorney for development. Borrowing heavily he laid out the ‘Ashted’ estate between the Coleshill Road and the Duddeston Road which met near Vauxhall Gardens. The take up of leases was slow and Brooke went bankrupt in 1793. Parts of the estate were still not leased in 1816. Ash’s house was converted to a chapel, dedicated to St James. The map shows the cavalry barracks erected by government after the ‘Church and King’ or Priestly Riots of 1791.
Laid out on Gooch land from the mid-1780s a network of a dozen or more streets were built around the Digbeth branch canal terminus. Two new steam engines are shown alongside the canal arm on either side of Fazeley Street. One drove a cotton mill which operated for ten years from 1787 and the other a metal rolling mill.
Despite the growth in non-conformism this map shows less non-conformist chapels than previous maps but shows three breweries and six new inns.
Catalogue of British Town Maps: 20193