Duddeston Hall and Vauxhall Gardens

History

The Holtes’ old house

Duddeston was one of the manors of the Holte family, who held Aston, Duddeston, Nechells and Bordesley. By 1400 Walter Holte held land in Duddeston and Bordesley with Aston. The manor house at Duddeston was the family’s seat until 1631, when they moved to Aston Hall, the great house Sir Thomas Holte had built. About 1725 a “Lady Holte”, presumably a widow of the family, was still living there.

Birmingham’s Vauxhall

From the 1740s the old house and its grounds found a new life. A cock-fight was advertised “at Duddeston Hall” in 1746, and the name Vauxhall came into use. Mrs Delany visited in 1749 and found the gardens “very neat and pretty, with a handsome bowling green”. In 1751 the place was offered to let as “Duddeston Hall commonly called Vaux Hall … a large and commodious house, with necessary out buildings, and a large bowling green”, with a concert every other week and a closed cock-pit. On 4 June 1758 it opened as a public house.

The Victoria County History describes fortnightly summer concerts for the “genteeler sort of people”, a bowling green and a billiard table, and balls held with the Hospital concerts. There were an orchestra, an organ, statues and shady walks. By 1781 the old manor house had been largely demolished.

Fireworks and balloons

Charles Pye described the gardens in 1818: “a very spacious bowling green, an orchestra, a great number of commodious gravel walks, on the borders of which are numerous lofty trees”. He also noted that the place had become an alehouse “where persons of all descriptions may be accommodated”, and that the lead statues had been removed after thefts. The gardens kept up with the times, with fireworks, athletic races, floral fêtes and balloon ascents. Sadler went up from here in 1811.

Then came the railway. The Grand Junction Railway reached Vauxhall in 1837, and the gardens’ popularity waned. That year Drake called the house and grounds “once a favourite resort but now deserted as unfashionable”. Yet they rallied, with galas and singers from London, and from 1846 they were styled the Royal Vauxhall Gardens.

The last dance

In 1850 the estate was sold to the Victoria Land Society for building. On 16 September there was a farewell dinner and ball. At six the next morning the first tree was felled, and the last of the old house was demolished that year. By 1855 new streets had been laid out over the grounds: Newdegate, Spooner, Scott and Pitney Streets. A smaller Royal Vauxhall Gardens carried on for a few years east of the railway, where in July 1853 Green made a balloon ascent and a floral fête was held.

By 1841 Duddeston and Nechells had more than 20,000 people, and the houses won. The site of the old hall is now covered by homes on Hindlow Close, between Vauxhall Road and Erskine Street, with a small park behind. Nothing survives above ground. But the name does: Vauxhall Road, Vauxhall Grove and the district of Vauxhall all remember the gardens where Birmingham once came to dance.

Why it disappeared

Estate sold and built over · Railway changes

The house was largely demolished by 1781. After the railway arrived alongside in 1837 the gardens went out of fashion, and in 1850 the estate was sold to the Victoria Land Society. The trees were felled, the last of the house was pulled down and the ground was laid out in streets.