All along
the straightened part there was on the left a wide open ditch, filled,
generally, with dirty water, across which brick arches carried roads
to the private dwellings. "The Plough and Harrow" was an old-fashioned
roadside public-house. Chad House, the present residence, I believe,
of Mr. Hawkins, had been a public-house too, and a portion of the
original building was preserved and incorporated with the new portion
when the present house was built. Beyond this spot, with the exception
of Hazelwood House, where the father of Rowland Hill, the postal
reformer, kept his school, and some half-dozen red brick houses on the
right, all was open country. Calthorpe Street was pretty well filled
with buildings. St. George's Church was about half built. Frederick
Street and George Street--for they were not "Roads" then--were being
gradually filled up. There were some houses in the Church Road and at
Wheeleys Hill, but the greater portion of Edgbaston was agricultural
land.
The south side of Ladywood Lane, being in Edgbaston parish, was pretty
well built upon, owing to its being the nearest land to the centre
of the town not burdened with town rating.
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