Birmingham Manor House and Moat

History

The lords and their market

In 1166 Peter, the lord of Birmingham, was granted the right to hold a market “at his castle of Birmingham”. That market made the town. The lords lived on an island south-east of St Martin’s church, inside a moat about 110 metres from north to south and 90 metres across. The ditch was up to about 10 metres wide on the north side and nearly 40 metres wide on the south. William Hutton, writing in the 1780s, said it was fed by a small stream turned from its course.

Historic England dates the moat by its pottery and stonework to the late 12th century, probably soon after the market grant. Older historians took the “castle” of 1166 to be this moat. Historic England is more cautious and suggests it might have been the Parsonage Moat instead.

Stone in a timber town

What stood on the island? Excavations in 1973–75, and again in 2021, found a wall of finely cut and tooled red sandstone, up to eight courses and 2.5 metres high, with an older, rougher wall inside it. Both are dated by their style to the 12th or 13th century. Timber stakes had been driven into the moat’s inner edge on the south-east side. Historic England points out that, apart from St Martin’s church, this is the only medieval stone building known in Birmingham. Every other known medieval building in the town was timber-framed.

The lords leave

The de Birminghams did not always hold on easily. In 1424 Sir William de Birmingham and his household were thrown out by force by Sir Edmund Ferrers. In 1536 Edward Birmingham made the manor over to Henry VIII, and no lord lived at the Moat again. A settlement of about 1560 still mentions “the manor-house with a mill standing in the outer court”.

Hutton saw what was left. He describes a building on the north-east side with Lord Ferrers’ arms in the ceiling timbers, “the oldest in Birmingham”. He also saw the room where the court leet was held, “in what we should now think a large and shabby room”.

A Georgian house on a medieval island

In the 1730s or around 1740 the Francis family built a new house on the island, “in the modern style”. From 1780 Thomas Francis leased the site and made coffin nails there. Hutton found the moat still full of water, used “now, to turn a thread-mill”.

On 29 April 1814 William Hamper drew the place from the south-east. His sketch shows tall poplars, the Georgian house, an old gabled building that looks timber-framed, an arched bridge, and St Martin’s spire beyond. By then, R. K. Dent says, the moat was “the almost dry ditch”.

Smithfield

The same spot, then and now

1888–1913

Today

Birmingham needed market space. The Street Act of 1812 let the Street Commissioners buy “the Moat and Moat House, belonging to Sir Thomas Gooch, Baronet, and Thomas Francis, Esquire”. By March 1815 they had bought it. In 1815–16 the buildings were cleared, the old drawbridge was removed and the moat was filled in. Smithfield Market opened on 29 May 1817 for cattle, horses, sheep and pigs.

The market stayed for two centuries. A wholesale vegetable market opened on part of Smithfield in 1883 and covered the whole site by 1900. The Birmingham Wholesale Markets followed in 1974. They closed in May 2018, moved to Witton, and the buildings were demolished in 2018–19.

Under the square

The demolition gave archaeologists another look. On 25 October 2023 the buried walls, the moat fills and the timber stakes were scheduled as a monument. The Smithfield redevelopment plans a public square over them. The island where Birmingham’s market began is set to become a public space, with the lords’ stone walls still lying beneath it.

Why it disappeared

Redevelopment

The lords had left in 1536, and by the 1800s the island held a private house and workshops. The Street Commissioners, who were improving the town’s markets, used powers in the 1812 Street Act to buy it. They cleared the buildings and filled the moat in 1815–16 to make Smithfield Market, which opened in 1817.