In 1928 Birmingham Corporation set out to buy the fields north of Perry Barr for a new town of council houses. The maps of that land were not blank. They showed Kettle House Farm beside the Kings Road crossroads, King’s Vale Farm and its cottages across the way, Warren Farm and Pool Farm with its pool, a smithy and a row of cottages with a post office on Holly Lane, and — up by the Queslett road — a little cluster of houses with its own well and pump, called Saltbox.
Within a few years most of it was gone. New roads were laid over the farmyards and the old lanes were widened. What had been a working landscape of fields, hedges and names became Kingstanding — at the time, by one historian’s reckoning, the biggest municipal housing scheme in Europe.
A landscape with a long memory
The names were old. The mound on the hill had been called the King’s Standing for centuries, and the Roman road to the fort at Wall ran past it. Roman coins had been found in a field beside the crossroads known, fittingly, as Roman Field — the same field where, in 1866, the Birmingham Waterworks Company sank its well. Perry — “Pirio”, the pear tree — was in Domesday Book in 1086.
Much of the ground was open common until the early nineteenth century: Perry Barr Common, with warrens where rabbits were bred. An Act of Parliament of 1811 and an award of 1814 divided it into fenced fields, and new farms and cottages followed. By the 1840s a handful of homes stood on land “enclosed from the common on the road leading from Great Barr to Lichfield” — the beginnings of Saltbox.
See it for yourself
Our map of Kingstanding has the Ordnance Survey map of 1888–1913 folded underneath it. Pull the tab on its right-hand edge and the estate rolls back to farms and fields, with every street and pin still in place — so you can find what stood where your house is now.
The places
Each has its own page: what it was, where it stood, what happened to it, and how we know. Where the evidence runs out, we say so.
Ancient monumentThe King’s Standing mound
The low grassy mound that gave Kingstanding its name — a scheduled ancient monument beside the Roman road, wrapped in legends of treasure and King Charles I.
Kingstanding Together · Own work
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Grade II* listedMaryvale, Old Oscott
The Grade II* listed house on Old Oscott Hill that was St John Henry Newman’s first home as a Catholic — he named it Maryvale in 1846. A home of Catholic worship and learning for more than three hundred years.
Andy Mabbett, 2016 · CC BY-SA 4.0
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Lost commonPerry Barr Common and the Warrens
Before the houses, before the farms, Kingstanding was open heath and rabbit warren. An Act of 1811 and an award of 1814 turned it into the straight fields the estate was built on.
C. Greenwood, Map of the County of Stafford, surveyed 1819–20, published 1820 · Out of copyright
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Lost houseKing’s Standing Lodge and the Warren Houses
A lonely warrener’s house on the heath, on the map by 1775 and let with 300 acres of rabbit warren in 1820. It stood by today’s Bandywood Crescent until about 1930.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, revised 1901, published 1904 · Out of copyright
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Roman roadIcknield Street
The Roman road from Wall to Metchley ran along the line of Kingstanding Road, past the King’s Standing mound and Romans Field.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, revised 1901 · Out of copyright
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Roman findspotRoman Field
A field beside the line of Icknield Street where Roman coins, including coins of Domitian, were turned up. Owned by the Catholic trustees at Oscott, it very probably became the waterworks site.
Ordnance Survey one-inch Old Series, revised 1831–32 (1863 printing) · Out of copyright
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Lost farmKettle House Farm
The farm just south of today’s Circle that gave its name to the Kettlehouse estate: in the deeds by 1814, a Calthorpe farm from 1846, and farmed by the Judds until 1936.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, surveyed 1882–83, published 1884 · Out of copyright
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Lost waterworksKing’s Vale Well and Pumping Station
Birmingham’s waterworks sank a deep well here in the 1860s, expecting six million gallons a day. It gave 300,000, turned bad, and was disused by 1913. The site is now Wheeldon Recreation Ground.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, revised 1901, published 1904 · Out of copyright
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Lost hamletSaltbox
A handful of roadside cottages on the old road from Queslett towards Lichfield, carved out of Perry Barr Common after 1814 and still lived in when the estate arrived.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, surveyed 1882–83, published 1884 · Out of copyright
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Lost farmMessuage Farm
A 62-acre farm carved from Great Barr Common whose name headed the 1930 plan for the Kettlehouse estate, then quietly dropped off the map.
Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, surveyed 1882–83 (published 1884) · Out of copyright
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Lost lane and hamletHolly Lane
The old lane under southern Kingstanding Road, with its smithy, Beech Tree Cottages, post office and the inn that was both Greyhound and Hare & Hounds.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, revised 1901 · Out of copyright
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Lost farmHalfway Farm
“Halfway House” on the 1831–32 map, home of Perry Barr’s tax collector, sold in 1921, and since 1938 the site of the drill hall on Kingstanding Road.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, surveyed 1882–83 (published 1884) · Out of copyright
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Lost farmWarren Farm and Lodge Pool
A lodge on the rabbit heath that became Warren Farm, with Lodge Pool, a hydraulic ram and Pool Farm beside it, all now under the Warren Farm estate.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, revised 1901 · Out of copyright
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Lost millsPaper Mill End and the Perry Barr mills
Blade mills, paper mills and a wire mill worked the Hol Brook below Old Oscott from 1597 until the 1840s. Paper Mill End still carries the name.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, first edition, 1880s · Out of copyright
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Lost brookOscott Brook
A small stream once ran from a fish pond at Old Oscott, along the line of Birdbrook Road, to the mill pool at The Beeches and on to the Tame. It went underground with the estate.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, first edition, 1880s · Out of copyright
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Lost hamletMedieval Oscott
Deeds from 1336 record a chapel at Oscott beside the Lichfield–Perry road, and “the town of Oscote” in 1392. Its Chapel Fields kept the name into the 1840s.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, first edition, 1880s · Out of copyright
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Lost schoolThe old school on Shady Lane
The school house beside All Saints on Shady Lane was recorded by 1840, ran as the Calthorpes’ Oscott Church School until 1900, and was photographed in 1938 before demolition.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, first edition, 1880s · Out of copyright
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Lost lodgeQueslett Lodge and old Queslett
Queslett Lodge guarded the south-east drive to Great Barr Hall from about 1800, facing Queslett Farm and near the Old Horns. Its sister, Handsworth Lodge, still stands.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, revised 1901 · Out of copyright
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Lost farmBooth’s Farm and William Booth
William Booth forged banknotes at Booth’s Farm until a raid in March 1812; his hanging took three attempts. The farmhouse stood until 1974 and its footings survive.
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, revised 1901 · Out of copyright
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Grade II listedYew Tree Cottages, Booths Lane
A pair of stuccoed cottages on Booths Lane, probably late 17th century and split into two homes in the early 1800s — a rare survivor of old Queslett, listed Grade II.
Richard Law · CC BY-SA 2.0
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How we know — and what we don’t
These pages are built from old maps, archive catalogues, trade directories, parish and estate papers, newspapers and the work of local historians before us. Every page lists its sources. When something rests on a single account or on local memory, the page says so; when a position on the map is approximate, the pin says so too.
Some of the best of this story is still in the archives, and some of it is in your family. If your grandparents farmed here, drank at the Hare & Hounds, or remembered Saltbox before the estate came, we would love to hear from you.
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