Following on from the 1884 Brownhills South and Walsall Wood map and others posted recently, I’ve dived into the digital archive after a request by reader Mike Hawes and pulled out the 1:2,500 scale gems from 1884 and 1914.
They show a rapidly expanding Aldridge, with a huge and growing area of collieries, brickworks and marl pits to the north, and a complex railway infrastructure. The current arterial road of Northgate had yet to be built and would run, as it does today, to the west of Leighs Wood.
For David Evans, wells are extensively noted with the ‘W’ mark. Other abbreviations are decoded by the Ordnace Survey themselves here.
1:2,500 scale 1884 draft of Aldridge northwest. This is a digitally archived copy, so should be accurate if overlaid on Google Earth. Download a high quality version from the links below.
You can download copies of the above map at high resolution below. They’re quite large, so patience will be required on slow connections.
1884 Aldridge Northwest – PDF – 2.2 megabytes
1884 Aldridge Northwest – JPEG image – 7.5 megabytes
1:2,500 scale 1914 draft of Aldridge northwest. This is a digitally archived copy, so should be accurate if overlaid on Google Earth. Download a high quality version from the links below.
You can download copies of the above map at high resolution below. They’re quite large, so patience will be required on slow connections.
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Thank You bob! there maps are superb , I could get quite carried away comparing them to toady. From the 1914 one it’s surprising how little was built on roads like Portland road (from the library to the railway bridge) , just two houses on the side of the road with the now conservative club. Thats just for starters – the route of the bypass and what was there before. The cattle market over the bridge in what I would say is *pool green* .
My mom was born in Aldridge and has loads of memeories , like great great grandmother fetching coal in a horse and cart from Walsall wood etc, the Loverocks who owned the farm where the masonic lodge is now etc.
How do I over lay the 1944 one into google? can the 1944 one be done as aPDF?
Sorry, Mike, that’s a typo on my part. It’s 1914, the date of the lower map. I shall correct forthwith. The PDF is 1914. Damn my proofreading!
I’ll do you an overlay tomorrow in Google Earth, hows about that?
Cheers
Bob
That would be great Bob, the placing of those little ponds I reckon is crucial to the waterlogging we have in this area. Over the last decade several very large trees have been felled, along with over grown Cypress hedges that probably looked great 40 yrs ago but become 40ft straggly things that take all the life from the soil. Now they have gone , plus building works for extensions etc I believe the water course and natural springs have come back.
Other things on the map – the position of the memorial garden to WW1 where the Portland buildings now stand, plus the orchard by the elms , the last pear tree was still standing just a few years ago on the precinct till it gave up and was felled.
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