West Heath is a residential area of Birmingham, England on the boundary with Worcestershire. Forming the larger part of the ward of Longbridge And West Heath it is situated between Kings Norton, Northfield, Longbridge and Cofton Hackett and lies on traditional heathland formed in the 13th century as part of the Kings Norton manorial lands, and was historically in Worcestershire.
Based on a small village formed in the early 1900s that was originally centred on the medieval Lilley Lane, the majority of West Heath's expansion and growth took place just after World War II. The original expansion in the 1940s and 1950s consisted of large numbers of prefab houses, most of which were eventually replaced by permanent housing estates in the 1960s and 1970s.
There are a number of buildings in West Heath that date to the 19th century and earlier. The suburb is adjacent to rural Worcestershire and a number of public footpaths allow open access to the surrounding fields up to Hopwood, Cofton Hackett and the Lickey Hills.
History
Early history In early Anglo-Saxon times, West Heath lay at the northernmost border of the lands of the Hwicce, a people who occupied the former territory of the British tribe, The Dobunni. As part of what would become Kings Norton, West Heath was positioned slightly to the north of the boundary between two tribes, the Pencersaetan and the Tomsaetan.Hooke Della "The Anglo-Saxon Landscape The Kingdom Of The Hwicce" page 85-6 Manchester University Press 1985
There is evidence of the previous presence of Romans in West Heath – in 1949, Roman coins of the reign of Emperor Hadrian were unearthed in Coney Green Drive in the Austin Village and there was a further discovery of coins of the reign of the Emperor Diocletian in 1966 in Hawkesley Drive, also in the Austin Village.
One of the earliest mentions of West Heath is in the Saxon lease of land at Coston Hackett in 849 AD detailing a grant by Worcester's Bishop Ealhhun to King Berhtwulf, King of Mercia. West Heath and parts of Kings Norton would remain part of Coston Hackett manor estates as late as the early 20th century. West Heath was mentioned in the manorial court roll of Bromsgrove and Kings Norton in 1267 when it was recorded that "Richard de Coſton has a purpresture (i.e. an enclosure of tenants land or an enclosure of waste land) upon Westhethe, Richard de Coſton holds four acres in Westhethe and does nothing in service to the King. Alexander and Gregory de Coſton hold land in Westhethe, Master John de Aluvechurch as (sic) 1 and half acres of purpresture upon "La Westhethe" by permission of Robert de Coſton". In 1494 it was recorded that "Baldwin Lyndon – banks in ruins between Hawkesley Pole and Westhethe...fined 2d" whilst the Abbot of Bordesley was fined 8d "through defect in cleansing the banks at West Hethe". In 1596, a woman called Joan was fined 6d because "she enclosed a parcel of the King's waste at West Heath".Goodger Helen. "Kings Norton", page 66. Brewin Books 1990
Turves Green was known as Turvosland in 1490 and was the site for peat-cutting for fuel. There is a layer of peat a few feet below the surface and deeper still are successive layers of clay and a coal seam and a bloomery has been discovered – this is the first form of forge for smelting iron from ore leaving less bulk to transport for further smelting to refine the metal.Poulton-Smith E. "Worcestershire Place Names", page 116. Sutton Publishing, 2003. In 1442 Turves Green had been named Le Grene Slave, Greenway Lane in 1780 and Green Lane in 1877.
During the English Civil War West Heath was on the border between royalist Worcestershire and parliamentary Warwickshire and there were regular minor skirmishes and conflicts between the forces of the two opposing sides. Situated off Turves Green, Hawkesley House, which belonged to the royalist George Middlemore and his family, was besieged and seized by parliamentary forces under Colonel Tinker Fox in April 1644. The Parliamentarians fortified the building but on 13 May 1645 Royalist forces under the king’s nephews Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice laid siege to Hawkesley House and were joined the following day by King Charles I who had been staying at nearby Cofton Hall. The Royalists took the house on 16 May and expelled the Parliamentary forces and razed the house to the ground.Mason Henry "The Austin Village", page 65. publisher unnamed. 2007 The inhabitants of West Heath would also have been aware of other clashes close by during the Civil War. Two miles away at Kings Norton Prince Rupert with eight troops of horses and 300 foot soldiers was engaged on 17 October 1642 on Kings Norton Green by a Parliamentary force of 800 foot soldiers and horsemen on its way to join the Earl of Essex at Worcester. The Royalists were routed by the Parliamentarians under Lord Willoughby Of Parham and fifty Royalist troops were killed and buried in an unmarked grave in King's Norton Churchyard. On 10 July 1643 Queen Henrietta Maria arrived in Kings Norton with 3000 horsemen, 30 companies of foot soldiers and artillery and camped there en route to Oxford where she planned to join King Charles. She passed the night in the ‘Saracen's Head’ while the location of the site where the soldiers camped is said to be where ‘The Camp’ public house is now located.
This historic association with the Civil War is marked by the naming of several roads in West Heath such as Fairfax Road, Cropredy Road, Edgehill Road and a public house named "The Cavalier" on Fairfax Rd.
William Middlemore rebuilt Hawkesley House in 1654 but by the 19th century its status was simply that of a farmhouse, called Hawkesley Farm, until it was demolished in 1957. A municipal block of flats – ‘Moat House’ – was built on the spot of the original Hawkesley House in 1971. The ancient moat can still be seen near Moat House.
From earliest times, what is now known as West Heath Road had been a trackway until 1796 when it was surfaced to become part of the Stourbridge to Wooten Wawen turnpike road. It remained a turnpike until 1820 with a toll-house at the junction of what are now Alvechurch and Redhill Roads, recorded in 1813.Richards Peter. "The History Of Northfield", page 13. Northfield Library 1986. National censuses for the 19th century reveal that the inhabitants were principally farmers, agricultural labourers or nail-makers. West Heath formed a part of Kings Norton, linking Kings Norton isthmus-like to Rednal which was also part of the district and the area was principally used as livestock grazing land. The land was jealously guarded – in the fifteenth century, during the reign of Edward IV, the manor court ruled that "No man shall take in foreign cattle to keep on the common" and in 1641, John Brookes of Cofton Hackett was fined five shillings for keeping a great flock of sheep on the common, "being a foreigner". Alan The Bailiff in the fifteenth century, had been charged to "drive" the common two or three times a year to discover the nature of the stock being pastured there and to ensure that no one should keep above five colts, horses or mares upon the common. Inhabitants were sometimes fined for "encroaching" (enclosing small areas) on the common although these may actually have been payments to regularise a new practice rather than a form of punishment.
After the Civil War, a Parliamentary Survey of "The Manor of Kingsesnorton" produced in 1649 because the manor "was in the hands of Parliament by reason of the seizure of the lands of King Charles I", reported that "The soil of the heaths, wastes, and commons called.... West Heath, and the archery (and all of them do contain in the whole by estimate of 3,000 acres or thereabouts) are the lord's and the trees thereon growing and "the bitt" belong to the tenants".
By the 19th century there was considerable local poverty and those who lived on Cofton Common were described as "peasants" in a reminiscence of Alice Impey who lived at Longbridge HouseDay Leonard G. "Down Memory Lane" Occasional Paper No. 14, page 9. The Northfield Society 1983 and who recalled that when someone died there it was necessary for her father to send a cart for the body to be taken to Cofton Church and buried in the pauper's section of the graveyard.
Nail making in West Heath Apart from agriculture, nail making was the most notable industry in 19th-century West Heath. Numbers of nailers in West Heath are included in figures for Northfield and in the whole district there were 122 employed in the industry in 1831. However the industry was already in decline – in 1841 there were 74 nailers and in 1884 there were only twenty-three with only seven in West Heath. Nailers' workshops were present at Groveley, West Heath and Turves Green; the latter was still the site of hand-made nail production by Mr. Withers in Oak Tree Cottages as late as 1910 although the factory of The Patent Hob Nail & Rivet Company had been opened in Station Road in 1900. The nailers' workshops were usually little lean-to sheds built against the sides of the cottages with a brick-built small furnace.Day Leonard G. "Down memory Lane" Occasional Paper No. 14, page 10. The Northfield Society 1983.
20th century residents As well-drained open heath land, the area was not developed as a residential area until the early 1900s, containing only a few scattered agricultural buildings and latterly one or two grand houses in the Lilley Lane area. In 1907 Kelly's Directory Of BirminghamAlan Godfrey Maps. "Old Ordnance Survey Maps Northfield South 1903" records that several middle class residents were living in the larger houses of West Heath including two professors of chemistry at the new University of Birmingham – Percy Faraday Frankland F.R.S. (son of Edward Frankland, an eminent scientist who discovered chemical valency and also godson of the famous physicist, Michael Faraday) lived at The Dell and Adrian John Brown F.R.S. (whose chair at the university was actually that of Malting and Brewing and who became a pioneer in enzyme kinetics) who lived with his family in West Heath House, which was the largest residence in the village but was demolished to make way for an Elderly Person's Home, situated at the junction of Alvechurch Road and Cofton Road. The replacement 1950s building was closed and demolished in 2016 and a newly built, 3-storey, 80-bedroom Residential Home, called "Austin Rose", was opened in Autumn 2017.