Posted by - John Barnes This is quite long, its about a part of Walsall ‘foreign’ and about a now ‘gone’ part of Walsall important past. I hope you don`t get bored! Many of the names of streets, roads, lanes and avenues of Walsall have some great history about them, and unlike some of the ‘listed’ buildings, the streets and roads cannot ‘accidently’ catch fire. Some of those streets and roads have lasted 200, 300 years and more in different forms – from paths to streets and roads - and Walsall itself - through ‘time’ changes – forestry, farmland, canals, coal, limestone, industries like leather, engineering and foundries and now, like many other older towns in the country who have lost traditional industries like steel, foundries, coal and cotton mills have become more or less service industry towns – badly let down by governments in every sphere of government and futuristic planning. Some streets are allowed to become an eyesore and give way to ‘time’ and new developments, but so have some of Walsall`s and it`s environs canal system – allowed to stagnate and become weed and rat infested by the Waterways Authority. So having seen what has happened to many fine buildings on those streets and roads we should treasure the memory of what we know of the history of some of those streets and the characters – some whom we may have known, our parents, grand parents and distant relatives may have known, and whom streets and roads were named after them – the very streets and roads where ‘we’ played, our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents played, worked and lived. I am only posting what I know or think, in some cases seen, and what I have read of Walsall`s great history – and Walsall does have a very long history – almost a thousand years of it - a history that we should be proud about it`s past, whether in business, previous architecture, people, war or sport! Some may agree, some may disagree with this contribution to P&P, but every one of us has an opportunity to contribute to P&P! MARSH STREET was once called Marsh Lane. In 1876 it was recognised as one of the poorest areas in the entire country and under a new Act of Parliament - the Artizans Dwellings Act it gave Walsall Council the opportunity to undertake some of the first slum clearance to take place in the whole of England by demolishing the slum dwellings of the poor. The alleyway which ran from Marsh Street along the side of the canal to just past the top of Upper Navigation Street was known as ‘Shitters Nick’ on the 1845 tithe map but not on other maps. As Walsall began to grow in the early 1800`s the Town End area became overcrowded and insanitary. Dwellings became notorious for prostitution, thieving and fights. In this area there was also a court [tenements] where the Irish people mainly lived, known as ‘Potato Square’ - an insult to the Irish people who had come to find work in Walsall. Anyone who has read about the Great Potato Famine that hit Ireland will know that Ireland at the time was regarded as part of the UK and was administered from Westminster. The Great Potato Famine in which over a million Irish people died and forced over a million to emigrate, mainly to America [the great diaspora – the population fell by about 20% in five years] was probably the ‘dividing line’ in the call for ‘Home Rule’ and all that has gone on in recent times between Ireland and the rest of the UK. Such was the situation in Town End during that era that in the 1840`s a Walsall poet named George Evans wrote the verse entitled, ‘Scenes in Marsh Lane on a summer evening.’ Here English, Irish, Scotch and Frenchmen too, At fall of day crowd thick upon the view; Here Cadgers, Tinkers, Pedlars may be seen, In tattered garbs of most forbidding mien; Italians, too, with ‘Images’ so white, Give to the coterie a chequered sight. Blind Fiddlers, led by dogs, for lodgings seek, Not for a night perchance, but for a week, Till they in Walsall every house have ‘tried’, And have at every door been thrice denied. Here ragged children flock about in swarms, And groups of women stand about with folded arms; And beardless youths among them oft appear, Whose filthy language wounds a modest ear. Here ‘Irish rows’ break out like thunder storms, And each blood-thirsty veteran flies to arms; As by electric shocks, the skirmish spreads, Which ends in crippled limbs and broken heads. Immediately past Marsh Street only a few yards into Wolverhampton Street stood the Duncow pub [now gone] which was known for prostitution, so the alleyway just inside Marsh Street was well used. That towpath saw a lot of life – life in the raw – one could say – sometimes in broad daylight, and as kids, one pretended not to look. There were fights on the towpath mostly between drunks sometimes money. Just down the road on the corner of Navigation Street there was a pub [I think it was called the Red Lion] where they had boxing on some Sunday afternoons. One Sunday, after Sunday School on corner of Queen Street I was going to see a friend in Navigation Street and followed the crowd into the yard of the pub. Some fella - he looked a right bruiser saw me . ‘You shouldn`t be in here son, here`s threpunce, go and buy an ice cream.’ Shaws glass shop was just inside Marsh Street in those days and mom used to paint pictures to earn a few bob. So when I fetched the glass I often walked along the towpath to go home. Looking back, I don`t know whether I wanted to be nosey or didn`t want to walk past and smell the aroma of Lowbridges home made sweet shop opposite the Savoy Cinema [ABC], especially if I had no money When I was a kid, the alleyway [Shitters Nick] still had that wall running along it as far as the top of Navigation Street, separating it from the canal. Over the wall was a towpath where Frankels stocked their aluminium. One may remember that last year I wrote a little story on P&P about when we were kids about 1947/8 while playing football in Upper Navigation Street we smashed the window of number six. We ran, and climbed over that wall and landed on Frankels aluminium and because we wore short trousers our legs were badly cut. Fast forward to around 2001, I came across a 1881 or 1891 census and found that my granddad and the Jacoms used to live at number 6, Upper Navigation Street – in fact my granddad was born in number six! I wonder if that smashed window was the original from when my granddad lived there. When we lived in Pleck Rd we lived at number 18, my gran and granddad at number 20 and the Jacoms at number 6. When we used to get coal out of the cut when it was empty, I always took a bucket to the Jacoms. On gran and grandads wedding certificate in 1905, one of the witnesses is Jacoms. I never knew what the relationship was. When you sit quietly outside the modern wharf pub and you look along the canal ‘directly’ towards Bridgeman Street canal bridge – take it all in - on the left only yards away was ‘Shitters Nick’ and Upper Navigation St – there used to be a foundry on the towpath corner. Further along still on the left just yards before the bridge was the Baccabox foundry. As kids, If we ‘borrowed’ a barge tied up for the weekend by the Corporation Yard immediately outside bottom lock on a Saturday afternoon to play ‘pirates’ we would push the barge with the fifteen foot barge pole across that wide part of the canal to the Baccabox. Still looking along the canal towards Bridgeman St bridge but on your right take in the rear of the Barrel pub, Franks`s coal wharf, the rear of Boot and Lancasters coal wharf – the Cats Protection League used to be just inside the their gateway on Wolverhampton St – I think it became Tildesleys Cars. Past Boot and Lancasters were a dozen houses – I remember the Bottomer`s, Wilkes, Joe Westley bike shop – Joe was disabled so after my paper round I used to help mend punctures – everyone rode bikes to work in those days and in foundries and engineering works, tyres were prone to iron filings. Just past those houses was Boots coal wharf another few houses then the gas maintenance works opposite the Engine pub stretching to the canal, then another half dozen houses, then opposite Adams Street one of those little wooden police boxes and a couple of yards away the entrance to the Corporation Yard which stretched up to the bridge at Pleck Road and down past bottom lock. The gas yard and corporation yard joined together and at one time had three gasometers before the gas works in Prince Street took over. So one can see all along that right hand side of the canal was a hive of activity with barges bringing the coal to the coal merchants along Wolverhampton Street!
Posted on: Mon, 19 May 2014 17:52:44 +0000
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