Easy Hill

History

A writing master’s Eden

John Baskerville came to Birmingham as a young man, earning a living as a writing master and cutting gravestones. Then he found his fortune in japanning: lacquered and painted metalware such as trays and candlesticks. In 1742 he patented a way of rolling and finishing thin metal plates in imitation mahogany or tortoiseshell.

With the money, in 1745, he leased about eight acres “a quarter of a mile north-west of the town as it then existed”, in the words of the Dictionary of National Biography (1885). He called it Easy Hill, built a house in the centre, and laid out the grounds. William Hutton, Birmingham’s 18th-century historian, wrote that he “converted it into a little Eden ... but the town, as if conscious of his merit, followed his retreat, and surrounded it with buildings”.

The perfect page

Japanning paid the bills, but Baskerville’s passion was letters. From around 1750 he poured his wealth into printing at Easy Hill. He experimented with everything: cutting punches, casting type, mixing blacker ink, smoothing paper, improving the press. His first book, a Virgil, appeared in 1757; a Milton followed in 1758. He became printer to the University of Cambridge and produced the great folio Bible of 1763.

Critics at home sneered. Readers abroad, including Benjamin Franklin, admired him. Baskerville’s typeface outlived them all and is still in daily use, in print and on screens, around the world.

The same spot, then and now

1888–1913

Today

Easy Hill was also home to Sarah Eaves, who came as housekeeper around 1750 after her husband had fled the country. She and Baskerville lived as man and wife and married in June 1764, after Richard Eaves died. In 1761 Baskerville served as High Bailiff of Birmingham.

A grave in the garden

Baskerville was a religious sceptic who wanted nothing to do with consecrated ground. When he died at Easy Hill on 8 January 1775, he was buried in his own grounds, under a conical building that had once been a mill. His epitaph, which he wrote himself, began: “Stranger — Beneath this Cone in unconsecrated ground / A friend to the liberties of mankind directed his body to be inhum’d.”

Sarah carried on the business and sold the type. The punches eventually went to France and, in 1953, to Cambridge University Press.

Fire

In 1789 the estate was sold to John Ryland, who called the house Baskerville House. Two years later Birmingham erupted. On 14 July 1791 a crowd angered by a dinner celebrating the French Revolution began attacking the homes and chapels of Dissenters. On Friday 15 July they reached Easy Hill. Ryland’s house was set on fire and gutted. A print published in 1792 by William Ellis shows the shell.

Baskerville’s vault was not disturbed by the rioters. It was disturbed by business. By 1812, according to local historian William Dargue, canal arms and wharves had been cut across the old estate. In the 1820s workmen dug up the lead coffin. For years it was kept in a warehouse and shown to the curious, until about 1829 it was quietly placed in a vault at Christ Church, New Street. Rediscovered there on 12 April 1893, the body was moved to the catacombs at Warstone Lane Cemetery in February 1898, where it remains.

Civic offices on a printer’s garden

The burnt house was cleared at a date nobody has recorded. In the 1930s the city planned a grand civic centre on the old estate. Only part was built: Baskerville House, designed by T. Cecil Howitt in 1935, begun in 1938 and finished in the 1940s. The Library of Birmingham says Easy Hill occupied approximately the land where the Library and Baskerville House now stand.

Today the building carries plaques to Baskerville, including a blue plaque unveiled in 2025 for the 250th anniversary of his death. Outside is David Patten’s 1990 sculpture “Industry and Genius”, whose reversed bronze letters spell VIRGIL. A man who printed some of the finest pages ever made is remembered, fittingly, in letters.

What happened here?

Baskerville lived and worked here from the 1740s until his death in 1775, running his japanning works and, from the 1750s, his type foundry and press. The Virgil (1757) and Milton (1758) were produced here. He was buried in the grounds. In 1791, as John Ryland’s house, it was burnt by rioters. Canal wharves were cut across the estate by 1812, and Baskerville’s coffin was dug up in the 1820s.

Why it disappeared

Riot · Redevelopment

The house, by then John Ryland’s, was attacked on 15 July 1791 during the Priestley Riots, set on fire and gutted (Dictionary of National Biography; Langford). The ruins were cleared at an unknown date. Canal arms and wharves were cut across the estate by 1812 (Dargue, lead only), and in the 20th century the site was used for the civic centre, of which Baskerville House (begun 1938) was built.