Brookvale Park in Pictures

Brookvale Park, 1912.

The areas around Witton are very watery with Salford Lake, the Upper and Lower Witton Lakes, as well as the lake at Brookvale Park. None of these are natural lakes, they were all formed to bring drinking water to Birmingham from the 1830s onwards, utilising the waters of the River Tame, and the lesser known Hawthorne brook, that comes into the Tame under Spaghetti Junction. Much of the Hawthorne Brook flows underground now, but you can find it here and there, including in Brookvale Park.

Here is what the park looked like over the last 100 years (from the Aston & Erdington, Past & Present site: here).

Brookvale Park, 1937 with George Road in the distance.

Brookvale Park, 1909.

Brookvale Park, 1910.

Brookvale Park, 1912, Slade Road entrance with public conveniences
on the right.

Brookvale Park, 1912, with the small stream (probably Hawthorne Brook),
known as 'Children's Corner).

Brookvale Park, 1912, with children at the goldfish pond.

Brookvale Park, 1913, with new houses on George Road and
the bandstand.

Brookvale Park, 1914.

Brookvale Park, 1915.

Brookvale Park, 1917.

Brookvale Park, 1922, with the old park-keepers cottage.

Brookvale Park, 1925.

Brookvale Park, 1940.

Brookvale Park, 1913.

Brookvale Park, 1910 with George Road on the right.

Brookvale Park, 1915, with George Road.

Rules for Working at Kynoch's

Rules were strict in an ammunition factory!

In the mid 1800s, the area around Witton was described as a “countryside of babbling brooks, smiling meadows and green trees, amidst which the song of the cuckoo was heard as early as in any part of rural England.” It was this open landscape that attracted the ammunition makers from nearby Birmingham, as the manufacture of ammunition, with its use of highly explosive chemicals, was not the trade for a built up town. In 1859 the ammunition factory of Pursall And Phillip’s on Birmingham’s busy, built-up Whittall Street exploded killing 19 people, all but one being girls aged between 10 and 31 years. Women and girls were often employed to make ammunition as it was thought they were more dextrous, as well as more careful with the explosive materials. Due to the fatal explosion of 1859, Pursall and Phillip’s moved their manufactory to a site near the River Tame in Witton, their employee, George Kynoch, taking over within the next few years. Kynoch named the manufactory the Lion Works, using a lion as his trademark, and began to build the business from a few wooden sheds.

Interior, 1889.