Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.61: A Regency Stay at the Hen and Chickens Hotel (New Street)

The Hen and Chicken's on New Street, with King Edward's school to the right, c. 1808.
Coaches would enter the rear stables through the arch.
Held by Birmingham Museums.

Were you at the “Hen and Chickens,” from which I write, however, you would be very well content with your quarters [...] I am surrounded by vases of beautiful flowers, many of them the choice productions of the green house in our rude climate, which ornament and perfume the halls and landings of the staircases, and impart an air bordering on elegance, to the general neatness and comfort of the establishment. The inn at which we are, is said to be the best in this great work-shop of iron and steel [...].*

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.52: The Swan Hotel in Pictures (High Street)

Swan Hotel in 1829.

The Swan Hotel was a large and dominant coaching inn on the High Street throughout the eighteenth-century and before. According to Joseph Hill it was an ancient tavern, the land of which stretching across the corner of High and New Streets, and belonged to a family called Rastell during the reign of Henry VIII. Between 1666 and 1688 the landlord of the Swan was Edward Crank, who demolished the old tavern, and built another set back from the street, with a large yard in front for carriages, and erected a row of five smart town houses along the street (seen on the left of the trade card, above).* The Swan was a haunt of Samuel Johnson, who wrote in 1755 'I was extremely pleased to find that you have not forgotten your old friend, who yet recollects the evenings which we have passed together at Warren's and the Swan'. Johnson resided in Birmingham in the early 1730s with Edmund Hector (to whom he writes above) at Thomas Warren's bookshop, which situated opposite the Swan at that time, as Warren's shop moved about.

Contemporary colouring of the 1829 card.

In the 1730s, as the notice below announces, you could catch a stage-coach to London at the Swan at six on a Monday morning, and return 'if God permit' on the Saturday. Take a journey on the Birmingham to London stage-coach here.

A map of the Swan Hotel was produced for a sale of the property in 1836. Although the hotel survived after this date, many of the extended parts of the property, such as the stables on Worcester Street, were being sold in different lots. The railway came to Birmingham in 1838 with the opening of Curzon Street Station, and whether prospective buyers would have been aware of the impact of the looming rail network, this was the end of an era for coaching inns like the Swan.

Held at Birmingham Archive.

The 'Coach Office', which can be seen in green on the map (Lot 1) on New Street, is depicted in the image below. The street on the right of 'W. JONES', the trunk manufacturer, was Worcester Street, and when the Rotunda was built, this became Worcester Passage, which has now gone itself, but was covered and cut underneath the Rotunda building.

New Street (left) at the corner of Worcester Street (right), c. 1840.
By Thomas Underwood, held at Birmingham Archive.

A later map of the Swan, from the 1850s, shows that the grand open entrance, where the coaches would turn (as seen in the 1820s trade card), had been built up with new shops, and the hotel itself had been limited to the site behind the New Street Coach Office.

1850s map showing the Swan Hotel.

The Twentieth Century Swan
The hotel survived until the late 1950s, but was demolished before 1961 to make way for the new Rotunda. The photos below were taken in 1932 by William A. Clark (all held at Birmingham Archive).

The swan over the door. 

The entrance door with the swan over, looking up
Swan Alley. Note Fred Burn on the right.

Poor image of the alley from the other direction. Not taken by Clark.

Landing of the Swan Hotel.

~ FINIS ~

Swan atop the left-hand building of the Hotel in 1800.
From Bisset's directory.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.47: The Beginnings of a New Age - Curzon Street Station

With the new plans for a 21st century Curzon Street Station unveiled (here) I thought I'd take a look at its first incarnation, about 180 years ago.

The era that I cover on this blog comes to an end with the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign in 1837. The beginning of this new age coincides neatly with the beginnings of the railway age, at least in Birmingham, as it was the next year, 1838, that the London and Birmingham railway opened in the town. The new trains arrived and departed from the parade of 'iron sheds' off Curzon Street where the new station had been erected. Of course, it was then called just 'Birmingham Station' as it was the town's only one. The grand building adorned with ionic columns (above & still standing) contained the board room of the directors, offices for the secretary, financial and correspondence departments, as well as a ‘refreshment saloon’. Tickets would be bought to the left of this building before catching your train.

In Osbourne's guide to the railway published in 1838 there is a lovely envisioning of what it was like to travel from the station:

'Porters with ladders are mounting and placing luggage on the tops, passengers are taking their seats, and arranging themselves for the journey; young ladies [...] who are going on a visit, accompanied by their mammas on one side, and lovers on the other, the servant man or maid following with band-box, are saluted and tended until they are safely packed in their places, and all the paraphernalia of veil, boa, cloak, muff, and reticule containing biscuits and oranges, scent bottle and purse, with change ready for use- are properly ordered. Old travellers, who have been most of their lives on stage coaches, take their places, and being accustomed to prepare at a moment’s notice, seat themselves, and quietly look on.

 Anon come some young gentlemen, whose lips are employed to smoke cigars, and let a few syllables drop by accident! Dressed as if for the saloon of a theatre, and bestowing a few glances of admiration on the affair, [...] they exclaim with a peculiar mark of sagacity, “Very fine, by Jove!” “Just the thing egad,” or “Know how to do the thing, damme”. Meanwhile the passengers increase, and you hear the conductor responding to the various questions – “Stafford, Ma’am?—in this carriage. – Wolverhampton, Sir? – in that [...]” The bustle increases, and you hear the parting salutations of friends. “Well, good bye—you’ll be sure to write directly”. “Oh, aye”. [...] If you wish to see and hear all about the matter, take your place outside. You will want an extra great coat, and a pair of gauze spectacles to keep the dust and smoke out of your eyes; but, in all other respects, you will enjoy ten times more than your fellow travellers.

 I shall suppose that you mounted on the box seat. You look round, and see several engines with red-hot fires in their bodies, and volumes of steam issuing from their tall chimnies. One of them move slowly towards you. The huge creature bellows, at first, like an elephant. Deep, slow, and terrific are the hoarse heavings that it makes. It passes by your train of carriages [...] there it is, roaring, groaning, and grunting, like a sea-horse, and spouting up steam like a whale. You feel a deep, strong, tremulous motion throughout the train, and a loud jingling rattle is heard, analogous to what is experienced in a cotton mill. The conductor has done his part and is seated; the guard is in his box at the back of the first carriage; a bell is rung as a signal for starting—and you are off.'

Snippet from an 1840s map showing trains coming into the station over the canal as they still do.

Japanned Things: Fire Balloons - The First Small Step

~Japanned tray depicting Mr Sadler’s ascension from Birmingham's Crescent on 13th October 1823. From the BMAG collection on display at the Birmingham History Galleries. ~

Ballooning was one of the most novel entertainments of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as it marked the beginning of man taking off from the planet; a new and exciting prospect. The first aviators were adventurers and daredevils, made all the more exciting by the flying balloons that they ascended in being called fire balloons. They were simply hot air balloons, but the idea of going to see a fire balloon take off definitely had a more dramatic sound to it. The first Englishman to take off was James Saddler (1753-1828) who took flight in London in October 1784 (the first Englishwoman, Mrs. Sage, ascended in June 1785). The spectacle spurred others to take balloons and travel around the country to put on balloon ascensions for paying spectators. A Mr. Harper was the first to arrive in Birmingham, in January 1785, taking off twice, the second time from a tennis court in Coleshill Street.* Ballooning could be a dangerous feat, accidents did occur, but although often not fatal, Mr. Sadler's own son, Windham Sadler, was killed in an accident in 1824.*

It was not till October 7th, 1811, that Mr. Sadler arrived to a great crowd in Birmingham's Vauxhall Gardens; it was his 21st ascent and a commemorative coin, left, was struck for the notable event.

By the time of the balloon ascension in 1823 commemorated on the tray, above, James Saddler was 70 years old, and it was one of his sons (either Windham or his other aeronaut son, John) who took flight from the Crescent.** The ropes were held by local school boys; the crowd paying 3s 6d each, all apart from a Mr. James Busby who paid 20 guineas to take his place inside the balloon's basket. The massive crowd filled the Crescent with 'shouts of an almost countless multitude';* a Mr. G. R. Bird, who ran a wharf on the canal near the Crescent, and who may have invested some money in the day's events, recorded in his diary that at 'a quarter before 3 o'clock Mr Sadler Junior went up in a fire balloon from the Crescent accompanied by James Busby, [and it] was seen for 20 minutes, took direction of Hagley and descended safe in a field near Kinver or Enville. The balloon was up 25 minutes and went 17 mile'. The balloon must have been quite a sight, not just for the paying spectators, but also anyone in the near vicinity. It was a rare sight as well, and must have captured the imagination of the country, as from at least 1787 stage coaches began being called 'balloon coaches'. We think of a balloon ride today as slow and relaxing travel, but in the late eighteenth century this was the fastest mode of inland transport (if not the most accurate) and perhaps coach proprietors used the name to assert their coaches as being speedy vehicles.  They were fire balloons after all!

NOTES
What to wear for a balloon ascent, 1785.
* References on request
** The Crescent was a development of smart town houses, planned to be like the Crescent in Bath, but never completed.

Newspaper Clippings: The Balloon Coach

~From Aris's Birmingham Gazette, 7 May 1787~
BIRMINGHAM and LONDON BALLOON COACH
The advert depicts the cost of coach travel at the time, which would have been completely out of the reach of the poor. It makes me wonder how the poorest, who did move about from country to town, and from town to town, transported themselves and their families. Note, also, how the proprietors protect themselves from the possibility of highway robbery by stating that they are not accountable for valuable goods.

Paper Remnants: The First Birmingham Stage-Coach

Print of a poster from May 1731 advertising the first regular stage-coach from Birmingham to London. The journey took two and a half days; but notice the get-out clause 'if God permit', allowing for anything from bad roads (which were common), poor weather (this is England) and any other eventuality that may be thrown at the journey. A regular stage-coach means that Birmingham's traders and manufacturers have a cheaper and easier way to reach the capital in order to make and maintain business connections. Take a journey on the London to Birmingham stage coach here.

London to Birmingham, by Coach

The London to Birmingham Stage Coach by John Cordrey, 1801. The coach,
full of passengers, includes a wedding party & is eight miles from London.   

Edit: The motifs painted on the side of the coach depicts two balloons (on the two side panels) either side of a Swan with Two Necks (painted on the central door). The Swan with Two Necks was a public house on Lad Lane in London, so the motifs shows that the coach was likely the Birmingham Balloon Post Coach, as noted in newspapers as stopping at the Swan with Two Necks. Detail provided with thanks by Tom Nicholls. 

As the London to Birmingham stage coach passes by, one friendly passenger raises his hat; another drinks heartily and seems ready to alight rather prematurely. The pace of Cordrey's coach seems very slow and easy, which could not be further from the truth. Our passengers would have been jolted all over the place as they sped over the bumpy roads, and considering that the speed of the coaches was of great importance, the comfort of passengers was often overlooked. For many wealthier travellers, the stage coach was an inferior mode of transport, the genteel Hotel on Birmingham’s Temple Row was proud to state that it did not have the ‘annoyance of stage coaches’ (visit the Hotel). Most of the other main inns in Birmingham had stage coaches running to and from them though, in 1830 you could catch one of several coaches from the Albion, Castle, Fountain, Hen & Chickens, Nelson or Swan everyday.*    

The first regular weekly stage coach between London and Birmingham was initiated by Nicholas Rothwell in 1731 (see poster) and made the journey in two and a half days (down from coaches taking four days in 1659 and three days in 1702).* By 1742 faster coaches, named 'flying coaches', were making the journey in only two days, and different proprietors ran different routes; the Lichfield and Birmingham route began on 12^th April (see cutting below) and a competitor, Robert Coles, began his Birmingham and Warwick coach less than a month later, running in the summer season, when the roads were safer.* In 1747 a journey on the Birmingham and Warwick stage coach to London cost 1l 5s, but the traveller was 'answerable for jewels, rings, watches, money, or plate, unless paid for after the rate of three-pence for every twenty shillings value' revealing the possibility of attacks from highwaymen.* In May 1742 an infamous highwayman called Mansell Sansbury who worked the roads near Banbury was finally arrested with an accomplice after stealing from a London to Birmingham stage coach and later being found passed-out drunk in a field. Highwayman was only Sansbury's 'part-time job', as most of the time he worked as a grocer in Banbury.

By 1783 thirty coaches were leaving for London from Birmingham each week, and were run by inn keepers as well as indepenent companies. One London to Birmingham route went via Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon and this was the route that William Hutton travelled in 1784, and subsequently wrote about a year later (though the book relates more to his stay in London than the journey which is a shame). On the route from London, you would travel all night, take breakfast and change horses in Oxford, and then dine in the evening at Stratford before moving on to Birmingham.* Later, in the 1820s, when this journey would only take one day, the stay in Stratford was limited to only a few minutes.* The journey became much quicker, and safer, into the beginning of the nineteenth century, due to some improvements to the roads. Between the 1820s and 1840s was the peak of coach travel; more coaches were leaving and arriving in towns like Birmingham than ever before, and, after the coming of the railways, ever would again.

The railway arrived to compete with stage coach travel from the late 1830s and slowly ate into the trade of coaches, the travel was faster, more comfortable, and it was even declared that it had medical benefits:

'With respect to the comparative advantages, in point of healthful exercise, between riding on the railroad and on the ordinary roads, there can be but one opinion, the oscillatory motion of the Railway carriage being much more salutary than the swinging, jolting motion of the stage coach. Dr. Johnson, a medical man of long experience [...] says, "The former equalises the circulation, promotes digestion, tranquilises the nerves, and often causes sound sleep during the succeeding night; the exercise of this kind of travelling being unaccompanied by that lassitude aching, and fatigue which, in weakly constitutions, is the invariable accompaniment of the ordinary coach travelling, and which so frequently in such constitutions produces sleepless nights"'.*

The 'Tally-Ho' London - Birmingham Stage Coach Passing Whittington
College, Highgate. 1836 by James Pollard

Take a stage coach to London past by visiting this great post on Regency London here. On the English Historical Fiction Authors blog. 

NOTES
* References on request
The Cock and the Redd Lyon in Digbeth, The Talbot and The Dogg in Spiceal St, The Dolphin in Corn Cheaping, The Horseshoe in St. Martins Lane, The Swan in High Street , The Garland and the Starr in High Town, The White Hart , Fleur- de- Lis in Moor St, The Angel and Hen and Chickens in High St.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.20: Staying in Style & The Hotel (Temple Row)

The Hotel, at this time known as the Royal Hotel, c. 1800. Drawn by T. Hollins
and engraved by F. Eginton. In this image is also pictured the Dispensary.

The Hotel sat on Temple Row, opposite the St. Philip’s churchyard area, surrounded by smart town houses that were used by the wealthy. It had been built in line with the circa 1720s houses (right of image) which were most likely built by William Westley. The building on the far right was used as a dispensary of medicines for the poor and is explored here.

The Hotel was erected in 1772 by tontine subscription and was the first building in Birmingham to adopt the French styling of hotel. The term was only just coming into use at this time, and it was used to promote what was basically an inn as a more fashionable and refined place to stay. The Hotel provided accommodation for travellers to Birmingham, food and also had a fine assembly room attached which was enlarged in 1804.* There is little specific information about the running of Birmingham’s Hotel but guests would have probably unloaded from their carriage to be taken into the main reception room and had their hats and coats taken by a servant; they could then be shown to their room, and it seems that some of the more elegant rooms were upstairs.* There would have been a dining room for meals, there was a bar, and some some hotels had a coffee room as well.* They were usually sitting rooms, and these may have been divided into separate rooms for the gentlemen and ladies. A courtyard for carriages and stabling for horses was at the rear of the Hotel, and accessed through the gateway on the left of the building (see image above).

The exterior of the building was quite simple and relatively unornamented but it was admired for this elegance and was thought a superior building. It also maintained a reputation as a higher-class establishment throughout its life.* Its higher status was partly due to it not having the ‘annoyance of stage coaches’.* Stage coaches were long distance coaches which stopped at specific points on a set route and were deemed an inferior way to travel by the wealthy, mainly due to the traveller being bound to the path of the coach, and having to share the coach with strangers. Travelling post was a much more desirable way to get from place to place as the hirer of the post-chaise could decide where the travelled, with whom and when (like a taxi or hire car, as post-chaises could be hired with or without a coachman).* The Hotel was known for excellent posting facilities, always required of an exclusive hotel; it could accommodate post-chaises and had ‘an extensive supply of horses and carriages [...] always in readiness’.* The mail coach also called at the Hotel.

The front entrance of the Hotel led to a ‘spacious saloon’ where guests would have been greeted, and at the extremity of which was a large, grand staircase which led to the assembly room. The assembly room was eighty feet long, thirty feet wide with a lofty ceiling; it had an organ and space for an orchestra as well.* Assembly rooms of the time were designed to impress and Birmingham’s Hotel was thought to be decorated in a most ‘tasteful and decorative manner’.* There were three cut-glass chandeliers, six large mirrors along the walls and it also contained five decorative cut-glass lustres, all designed to reflect and enhance the candle-light and produce a sparkling effect.* The season in Birmingham was through the winter when eight or nine dancing and card assemblies would be held, as well as three or four music concerts, all by subscription, so as to keep the entertainments for the elite and leading families.

* References on request
NOTES
The 1791 riots began at the hotel; find out more here.
To find out more about assemblies, click here.
ROYAL HOTEL: In 1805 the Hotel applied to become the Royal Hotel after HRH the Duke of Gloucester stayed; Princess Victoria (the future Queen) also stayed in 1830, among many other distinguished guests that the proprietors would often list in their adverts.
PROPRIETORS:
DADLEY and PALMER: c.1780, 1787 (Thomas Dadley & Fielding Palmer)
PALMER: 1789
DADLEY: 1779, 1791, 1793
W. STYLES: 1800, 1808, died 1809
WILDAY: 1814 (Wm. Wilday d. 1818) (Mary, 1824) (Mr. Wilday, 1829)
FREDERICK DEE: newly fitted in 1830, 1838



Trade card for Royal Hotel under Frederick Dee, 1838.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.2: Georgian Post Office (New Street)




The Post Office (right) and other shops on New Street in 1824.
By Samuel Lines Senior

It is easy to forget in this information age, when you can communicate with the other side of the planet within seconds, that the only way to be in contact with those outside of the town in the Georgian era was either to go and visit them or through the post office. The post office was very much the hub of communication in the Georgian town; it was where information was transmitted, not only through letters, but the post office was where you could find news of distant wars and current events, when newspapers were a luxury to many. The buildings life and history was discussed in a column of the Birmingham Daily Post in the 1860s; it was a nostalgic look back, and also, an attempt to comprehend the rapid change that was happening at the time. This post narrates the memories from those articles as well as other sources to understand what was being recorded in the drawing above by those who could actually remember.

For many wealthier visitors to the town, the post office would be their point of arrival, if they had taken the mail coach at least, alighting in the yard behind and walking out into New Street. In front of them would be the Theatre Royal and Portugal House, behind them appearing from behind the trees would be the Baroque tower of St. Philip’s, three of the finest buildings of the town, and this would be their first impression. The post office building itself had either been built or appropriated in about 1784 and was a simple unassuming Georgian house covered with rough stucco and whitewashed. The door to the office was on the right, with a small window for posting letters out of hours that was lit at night by an oil lamp and space for only about six people inside.* In the drawing the step outside has become worn from its service to many feet. To the right was a small outbuilding with a window where the notices would be placed, it was here where news of the Battle of Waterloo was posted.* The house of the postmaster, John Gottwaltz, was entered by a separate door surrounded by elegant Classical porch.

If you turned right out of the coach yard, passing the post office on your right, you would follow the wall of the Gottwaltz garden for a bit, with trees bowing over the top, and then find premises hiring out post horses and hackney coaches. Post horses were not just for the fast delivery of mail, but could be hired for carriages; often someone with their own carriage would start out with their own horses, but for long journeys the horses would need to be rested and then returned home, and the traveller could hire the post horses to the next town, and so on till their destination was reached. Hackney coaches were rented four wheeled vehicles, with or without a coachman, but were thought of socially as an inferior mode of transport to the mail coaches which delivered the post. The mail coach was usually how someone with means but who could not afford their own carriage would arrive in a town from afar.

The first mail coach to deliver and collect from Birmingham was in 1812 (though mail coaches began in 1784), it would have delivered to the local inns and clattered up Georgian New Street through the post office gates. The coaches all looked the same; large red wheels with maroon on the lower body and the doors and a black upper body. Each door was painted with the royal arms as well as the words Royal Mail, and on the side of the drivers carriage the letters GR were intertwined for George Regina. The panels on either side of the doors were painted with stars of the principal orders of the knighthood; the garter, bath, thistle and St. Patrick, and painted on the rear was the coaches individual number.* Each coach carried a driver and an armed guard both wearing smart red uniforms but with different coloured collars so that they could be distinguished from each other. The guard was responsible for locking the mail in a box at the rear of the coach. Sometimes the guard would hand over his watch to the postmaster to be checked and repaired to maintain the good time keeping of the coaches.

~A Georgian mail coach (produced circa 1870); the heads from this scrap have been lost.~

In about 1820 a brand new street, Bennett’s Hill, cut down onto New Street straight past the post office, which was at that time extensively altered. Bennett’s Hill sat where the yard and its gates had sat, and no more mail coaches disembarked at the post office; mail and visitors instead arriving at one of the towns several inns and hotels. This post office was run by John Gottwaltz’s unmarried daughter, Georgina Margaret, who had taken over when her father died in 1817, and who moved with the post office as it transferred over the street to the converted Portugal House in 1842. The old building was taken down shortly afterwards.

NOTES
*From Kirsten Olsen, All Things Austen (Oxford: Greenwood World Publishing, 2008).
Images courtesy of Birmingham Library and Archive Services.
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