1883 Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map of central Brownhills, Ogley Square and Newtown. Some gems on here if you look closely. CLick for the full size version – may take a while to load.
Just a quicky. Here’s an 1883 Ordnance Survey map of the northern half of Brownhills. I dug it out particularly for the lady – Vicki Brosch – who recently asked where Ogley Square was. It can be seen approximately a third of the way across the map from the right, just up from the bottom.
There are some gems here, but I noted particularly that the area around where the footbridge is now, at the bottom of Pier Street, is labelled ‘Pike Hill’. We know this has been referred to as ‘Pike Helve’ – misheard by the surveyor, or evolution?
Fill your boots, folks, and do comment on anything you spot.
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Hi Guys. Anyone there?
A fantastic map and what about some of the details, the small incidental things that only appear on a map and get the mind racing.
One of my immediate thoughts was what came first? The Flour mill or Ogley Square?
Were the two connected in any way? Were the houses on the square built for the mill?
Opposite the Square was, I assume a pub, called the Woodman Inn, I’ve not heard or seen anything about this before. Given the track / road leading from the square towards the mill then appears to cross the canal and into a wood, were all three connected?
Was the square built for the mill and the woods?
Whilst the square wasn’t in complete isolation geographically it does seem a little stuck out of the way, albeit on a main thoroughfare.
Anyone got any ideas?
Peter.
Between 1867 and 1916 there seems to be an extraordinary number of persons from Ogley Square appearing at the Petty Sessions!
Can only find one reference to Ogley Flour Mill, being in June 1909…when a violent thunderstorm passed over Brownhills and a house belonging to Mr Astbury and his family, situated near to Ogley Flour Mill, on the opposite side of the canal, was struck by lightning. One of the chimney pots and other parts of the building were shattered, but all members of the family, who were in the house at the time, escaped injury. In an outbuilding a hen and chickens were killed.
For an example of the conditions of Ogley Square in July 1899..
Council meeting the Medical Officer reported… “Yesterday while on an ordinary routine visiting to the square my attention was called to the privies and ash pits by several tenants. They were in some cases full to the top and bursting through the bad brick work, and spreading over the open enclosure, causing great smell and being obviously a serious menace to public health. The tenants told me that the person appointed to clean and empty the same said that he was only to do so once a month, whatever state they might be in, but as they were 12 families to one closet they thought that too long, so did I. House number 22, adjacent to the Woodman Inn, was still worse off, as the kitchen was only separated by a brick wall from the closet of the Woodmen Inn. When I saw the the kitchen it was dry, yetnthere was marked evidence on the walls that tenant’s statement was true that Foecal matter poured over their kitchen floor. This is a case in which I hope the parties liable may be at once brought to understand their duties to their fellow men.
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In 1885 Hannah Brown was refused a Licence for the Woodman Inn (later she must have been successful).
“The Inn is situated on the main road from Walsall to the Chase and in the imminent neighbourhood of Ogley Square where there are 50 houses and a large mill nearby”
George Deakin of the Woodman was in debt in 1861 and so the Inn must have existed prior to this date.
There is a record of the Boat Inn in 1891, with the address of Ogley Square, to be closed until another tenant was forthcoming.
In White’s Directory of 1834 Ogley Hay is described as an unenclosed heath owned by Phineas Fowke Hussey, extensive waste. Grouse and partridge here in abundance.
Phineas Fowke Hussey died in 1836, and the land was then bought by Charles Foster Cotterill. He appears to have sold bits at a time until 1846 for farming, a flour mill and a foundry.
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