During the Middle Ages the Chester Road was known as the Welsh Road. Drovers would bring their herds of cattle and sheep for sale at the markets of Birmingham and the Midlands, London and the south-east of England.
Livestock were not brought for sale for slaughter, but to be fattened up. The poor soils of Wales and Scotland did not produce animals fat enough for sale as meat. And so they were brought for sale to farmers in the lusher pastures of England who would fatten them up for sale.
Every spring and autumn large numbers of animals were driven south. From Wales to the Midlands might take two or three weeks, from Scotland to the south-east was a journey of over seven weeks. Although droving must have happened for many hundreds of years, the greatest numbers of animals were moved between 1700 and 1850, from the time the English cities began to grow until the coming of the railways. By the beginning of the 19th century some two million beasts were moved every year.
The route to the Midlands for many cattle started on the isle of Anglesey. The animals had to swim the Menai Strait at low tide, often 300 at a time. In the year 1794 records show that some 14,000 cattle crossed from the island to North Wales.
The drovers would then head for Shrewsbury to follow the ancient route of Watling Street, the A5, towards Brownhills. Here the Welsh Road turned south heading for the crossing of the River Tame. Drovers going to London would follow the road from Castle Bromwich to Stonebridge and on to, Kenilworth. This is now largely the route of the A452. From there the way to London went via Southam and Buckingham along what are now minor roads and tracks.
At Castle Bromwich many drovers would continue on towards the south east, while others would make their way via Hodge Hill and Washwood Heath into Birmingham. Every year, thousands of cattle and sheep would pass through Castle Bromwich.
Travel with a herd of cows was slow, perhaps only two miles per hour. As a result many stops for the night would have to be arranged and paid for. It is thought that Welshmans Hill on Chester Road North near New Oscott was one such, hence its name.
In the 18th century the crossroads on the High Street in Birmingham with Bull Street was known as the Welsh Cross. This was the site of the market for livestock from Wales. The building itself dated from the beginning of the 18th century and was demolished in 1803.
The Broughton – Chester – Stonebridge Turnpike 1759
In the 18th century the responsibility for maintaining roads lay with the parish. It is easy to understand the resentment felt by local people who had to pay for the upkeep and repair of through routes which were used by travellers who gave nothing to the local economy.
The Chester Road was part of a long-distance route from the south- east to the north-west of England and North Wales. It was heavily used by cattle drovers and, from 1659, was the route of the London-Chester stagecoach, the first such in the Midlands. (This service ran with until the 1830s with only a single year’s gap during the outbreak of the Great Plague in 1665. It was put paid to when the London – Birmingham railway opened in 1838.)
Parliament authorised turnpike trusts to be set up to take responsibility for specific stretches of road. Each trust had to be established by an Act of Parliament permitting it to erect gates and keepers’ cottages, and to charge tolls in return for maintaining the road.
The first turnpike act was passed in 1663 but it was not until the next century that large numbers of toll roads were set up. Most of the country’s major roads had been turnpiked by 1750. The tollhouse at Castle Bromwich was probably a simple structure like this one at the Weald & Downland Open Museum, Chichester.
All toll houses had a board listing the charges like this one at Todmorden.
The Broughton – Chester – Stonebridge Turnpike was set up in 1759 with a toll gate on the Chester Road at Old Croft Lane. The toll house has not survived and was very likely a simple wooden structure. A house nearby is now called Toll Gate House, although this is in reference to its position rather than the fact that it actually was the toll house. The 14 foot-wide (4½ metre) Castle Bromwich gate still survived as part of a fence in Kyter Lane until 1956. The route was ceased to be a turnpike in the 1870s.
The Coleshill Road
The Birmingham – Coleshill Road leaves the Chester Road by Castle Bromwich Hall heading into Birmingham via Hodge Hill, Ward End, Washwood Heath and Saltley. This was a route from Norman times – a market in the Bull Ring was established by a royal charter in 1166 and Coleshill in 1207. The road found its way along higher ground where possible though the crossing of Wash Brook at Washwood Heath Park and especially the River Rea at Saltley must have been tricky in winter.
In 1760 this road was turnpiked. However, writing in 1781, Birmingham’s first historian, William Hutton, complained about the route. He knew it well, as he lived at Washwood Heath and had farming interests on this side of town.
‘At Saltley, in the way to Coleshill, which is ten miles, for want of a causeway, with an arch or two, every flood annoys the passenger and the roads: at Coleshill-hall, ‘till the year 1779, he had to pass a dangerous river.’
The End of the Turnpikes
The last turnpike to be set up was a two mile stretch at Hastings in 1836; by this time all major and many subsidiary routes had been turnpiked. However, with varying qualities of maintenance and delays caused by stopping at gates every few miles, the system was beginning to be seen as disruptive to the free flow of trade.
And then railway mania began. When the London – Birmingham Railway opened in 1838, there was an immediate and dramatic fall in takings along the roads affected. That same year, the Royal Mail was first carried from London to Birmingham by rail.
The turnpikes were unable to compete with the capacity or speed of the railways for long-distance traffic. Many of the trusts ran into debt and the conditions of the road deteriorated. By 1840 all the London to Birmingham stagecoaches had ceased and by 1850 only a few services remained running to towns not served by rail. Most turnpike trusts were dissolved in the 1870s and 80s and they all were finally abolished by Parliament in 1888 when the newly established county councils were given responsibility for trunk roads. Parishes and townships took control of local roads.
The A452
The present national road numbering system was put in place in 1923. The Chester Road through Castle Bromwich was designated as the A452 from Leamington Spa to Brownhills, where it joined the A5 London-Holyhead road.
The route of the A452 through Castle Bromwich was that of the Chester Road from Stonebridge and Bacons End past the Bradford Arms and through the village (Bradford Road had not then been built).. The Chester Road turns sharply at Castle Bromwich Hall and formerly dropped steeply down to the crossing of the River Tame, then following the Chester Road to New Oscott, skirting west of Sutton Park to Brownhills.
Bradford Road was laid out in the 1930s with Newport Road to bypass Castle Bromwich village and the steep Mill Hill. It is named after the Bridgeman family, Earls of Bradford who bought the manor 1657; the title of Newport is that of the Bradford heir.
When the Chelmsley Collector Road was constructed in the 1970s, it became the route of the A452 from Bacons End to join the Chester Road at a newly laid out island at the M6 Junction 5 at the foot of Mill Hill.
The Chester Road through Castle Bromwich was then designated as the B4118 with the Bradford Road becoming the B4114, the former only 2½ miles in length, running from Castle Bromwich to Water Orton, the latter running from Birmingham (Saltley) to Leicester (Fosse Park). The B4119 is that short stretch of the Chester Road running past the Bradford Arms from Bradford Road to meet Water Orton Road at Whateley Green. Only 0.2 miles in length it is one of the country’s shortest numbered roads.
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