Description:This circular framed manuscript plan was drawn by Ebenezer Robins in 1820. He used colour washes on top of the drawn map to show the principal land ownership within the town. A brown wash, shows Heneage Legge’s land; purple : Colmore ; blue : Inge ; green :Gooch & grey : King Edward’s School land. In addition, several properties on the edge of the built-up area are labelled with the land-owners name. Sheep Street appears as an afterthought, ghosting across Colmore land between Aston Street and Lawrence Street.
BIRMINGHAM Ebenezer Robins 1820 MS3154/4
This framed circular manuscript plan was drawn by Ebenezer Robins, one of a family of land surveyors, Josiah, Cornelius & Ebenezer, with offices in New Street. It was donated to the library in 1915 by a land surveyor.
According to trade directories, an Ebenezer Robins had an office in New Street from 1815 to 1820, shared an office in New Street with Josiah and Cornelius Robins from 1821 to 1825 and then shared an office in New Street with Cornelius until 1871. Given the timespan involved this would imply a career of 56 years and more likely reflects two generations with the same forenames.
The Ebenezer Robins that made this map is probably the one that died 1 July 1861. He is known to have produced maps of the property of Lapworth charity (1811), Rugeley parish (1812), the Birmingham Worcester canal & a reservoir for the Stratford canal (1816) and to have given evidence to a Commons Select Committee on building regulation 18 April 1842.
Robins used colour washes to show the principal land ownership within the town.
A brown wash, top right, shows Heneage Legge’s (formerly Holte) land. A purple wash, Newhall estate and elsewhere, shows Colmore land. A blue wash, dotted throughout the town shows Inge (formerly Philips) land. A green wash, to the south of the town, shows Gooch (formerly Sherlock) land. A grey wash shows King Edward’s School land. In addition, several properties on the edge of the built-up area are labelled with the landowners name.
The cartouche at the foot of the map shows the skyline of Birmingham viewed from the south-south-east, near Highgate, showing from left to right Christchurch, St Phillips, St Martins in the foreground, St Mary’s, with its spire peering above the hill, and, appearing through the trees, St Bartholomews. The only secular building that should be seen but isn’t, between St Phillips and St Martins, was King Edwards Grammar School, on New Street.
The map has 1o west of north at the top and the borders cover a diameter of 4.8km centred on St. Phillip’s church [later cathedral]
This is the first Birmingham map to show the new roads at Bennett’s Hill. The Phillips', later Inge, land, comprising two closes, Bennett's Hill and Banner Close, lying between St Philip's church, Ann Street [later Colmore Row] and the top of New Street, were tied up as agricultural land in 1698 for a term of 120 years.
To the north of Holloway Head, again on Inge Land, two new streets first shown on Josiah Robins map are named as Blucher Street and Marshall Street, presumably after Prussian Generalfeldmarschall Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher whose action against the French right wing at Waterloo helped to seal Napolean’s defeat.
On the glebe land out near Five Ways the extension of St Luke’s Street beyond St Martin’s Street acquired it’s modern name of William Street.
The industrial area around the old mill pool sported steam mills, a forge, Deritend Mills and a tannery as well as the Gun Barrel Proof House [here labelled New Trust House]. Pickford’s wharf, next to the Warwick Bar, was just one of a chain of canalside facilities built by the company as it embraced the use of canal flyboats between 1780 and the end of the Napoleonic wars. The post-war slump left Pickfords near to bankruptcy until, in 1817, it was taken over by Joseph Baxendale who rebuilt the company.
Between the turnpike to Dudley and the turnpike to Wolverhampton, The Icknield Road marks William Hutton’s misguided conjectures on the route of the old roman road (Ryknield Street). Though its route through the city remains shrouded in controversy most now agree that Hutton’s route was not the most probable.
Down by the river Rea, Pudding brook appears for the last time although by then, it had probably been redirected to its original route, joining Dirty brook before flowing into the Rea just above Vaughton’s Hole. At the end of the footpath extension of Rea Street, Long Bridge probably denoted a footbridge that crossed the now straightened Rea just where the old meander had lead off to the Apollo gardens.