Fields and Allotments

The Fields and the Allotments

Returning to Stockwell Farm and looking across we see the allotments with a background of the original fields of Hill Top Farm. The two meadows bordering Stockwell Lane (now Friary Road) called Fish Pond Piece are now part of the Friary Road Allotment site.

Further across the outlines of the original fields are to be seen. Upper and Lower Moor, Broad Croft, Little and Small meadows with Pool Fields. Boundaries of these fields remain with portions of hedge and banks marking former boundaries. Beyond the Bridleway to West Bromwich there are also the fields to be seen as they were in 1794. The allotments have absorbed Higher and Further Rees Fields and the Higher and Further Wheatfields; except that a large portion of Higher Wheat field with land opposite Camp Lane has been used for a small council estate known as the Leverets.

My two allotment gardens are to be found in what was Long Meadow behind Bulls lace.

A large public house called 'The Uplands' has been built in the south west corner of Long Meadow at the junction with Oxhill Road. Being low lying and at a confluence of drainage water, water-cress was once grown where now the public house stands. The field called Bulls Hold had now a row of three storey "Miners Cottages" presumably named by the inhabitants some of whom may have worked at Jubilee Colliery. Adjacent to these are now two large garage and petrol stations together with a small number of houses built in what were the gardens of two or three large houses. These occupy part of the field formerly known as Bulls Piece. The land named as "The Moor" is of interest in that it was once used for the extraction of gravel. The resulting excavations were filled in and a group of houses have been built aptly named "Friary Gardens".

(One of the large houses used to be our doctors house - The land where Friary Gardens stands was filled in with refuse before the houses were built - JFB)

◄ Friary Road

Hawthorn Brook ►

Pre-school years: 1912 - 1917 School days: 1917 - 1925 St. Andrew's Church, Handsworth
Friary Road 1985 The Fields and the Allotments Hawthorn Brook The Bridleway to West Bromwich Hill Top Farm Lodge Farm Conclusion