Elm Bridge
Four. Elm Bridge
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Westward is to West Heath Park, where the old boundary is shadowed closely enough by following the outer, most westerly, path of the park, past what was once Staplehall Farm. If you were being exceptionally loyal to the boundary route, you would need to push close to the garden fences lining the park.
(back)
After this point, the weather turned so bad that I could no longer take photographs. The other markers on the boundary line are below:
Five. Fordrough
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The old boundary line exits the park at The Fordrough. A "fordrough" is a term found only around Birmingham and nearby villages and towns. It was a tree-lined road leading to a farm or house, where the cattle would be driven. Think fore-drive or fore-draft - names which are found elsewhere, where the Brummie twang didn't forge a new name.
It was here that the rain and the wind made it impossible to take photographs.
Six. Oak Junction II
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The boundary line followed the old field boundaries, but these have now been built on, so we take the line of The Fordrough to the junction of several roads. At this junction, of The Fordrough, Alvechurch Road, Redhill Road, Turves Green and, the more recent addition, Fairfax Road, another boundary oak was marked in the early 1900s. This oak may possibly be the oak that still stands in the garden of the nursery school.
Again, after the Oak Junction, the boundary line has been built over. The nearest way to follow it is to walk down Fairfax Road. This one of several nearby roads and landmarks named in relations to the English Civil War - Sir Thomas Fairfax was an officer of the Parliamentarian forces.
Seven. Turves Green Brook
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Towards the end of Fairfax Road is an open green space where the Turves Green Brook flows, hidden away in the undergrowth. The boundary once followed a short, meandering stretch of the brook.
The brook is, once again, unfollowable, but it is visitable. Instead, we take a detour up Turves Green - the road. This detour takes us quite a distance from the old line, but is unavoidable as the brook flows through the grounds of the schools. We can trace it again, near to where it once passed Turves Green Farm, by following The Oak Walk, a road lined with almost every tree apart from oaks.
Eight. The Oak Walk
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The Oak Walk leads into the Austin Village, which was constructed towards the end of World War I by Herbert Austin, for his workers at the Austin Motor Company nearby.
Austin imported 200 red cedar wood prefabricated bungalows from the US, which were built along Central Avenue, with side roads branching off under the names of Rowan, Maple, Laburnum, Cedar, and Cypress Way.
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The Oak Walk leads into the Austin Village, which was constructed towards the end of World War I by Herbert Austin, for his workers at the Austin Motor Company nearby.
Austin imported 200 red cedar wood prefabricated bungalows from the US, which were built along Central Avenue, with side roads branching off under the names of Rowan, Maple, Laburnum, Cedar, and Cypress Way.