Great Barr is a large and loosely defined area to the north-west of Birmingham, England. The area was historically in Staffordshire, and the parts now in Birmingham were once known as Perry Barr, which is still the name of an adjacent Birmingham district. Other areas known as Great Barr are in the Metropolitan Boroughs of Walsall and Sandwell.
Samuel Taylor, an itinerant Methodist preacher, visited Great Barr in 1792 and remarked "preached at Barr, a village famous for nothing as having given birth to Francis Asbury of America and being the present residence of his parents, at whose house we preached".[1]
Great Barr was largely rural until the early 20th century, though it was influenced by the early stages of the industrial revolution which affected the nearby towns of Birmingham and the Black Country. The Staffordshire parish of Barr straddled the route from Birmingham to Walsall. Birmingham's historian William Hutton was surprised to see so many nail-making workshops in the area. He noted that "in some of these workshops I observed one, or more, females, stripped of their upper garments, and not overcharged with the lower, wielding the hammer with all the grace of their sex".
At that time the area was on the main drovers' routes which saw trains of horses taking coal from Walsall and Wednesbury to the factories and furnaces of Birmingham. At the Scott Arms there was a weekly cattle market which attracted large crowds. The Scott Arms and the Malt Shovel public house in Newton, did a roaring trade with drunkenness, cockfighting, and gambling common. Francis Asbury referred to it as "a dark place called Great Barre"
The rural economy was dominated by four great landowning families, the Wryley Birches, Dartmouths, Scotts and Goughs. The parish was series of tiny hamlets: Howell's Row, Sneal's Green, Newton, Margaret's Lane, Queslett, the Common, Bourn Pool, Bourn Vale, the Tamworth Road, the Gough Arms Inn (later called the Beacon Inn) and around Barr Hall. In 1817 there were 120 houses occupied by 127 families, 78 of whom were engaged in agriculture and 30 in trade. These trades included a tailor, boarding house owner, a wheelwright, a butcher, a grocer, who doubled as a constable, a shoemaker, two brick makers, a maltster, gun lock maker, three blacksmiths, and four spectacle frame makers. [2]
The 1901 census recorded a population of 1,344, by 1921 this had increased to 2,232.[3] By 1930 the population had grown to 3,294, by 1951, despite the war, it had reached 12,648. In 2015 the two local government wards in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, which now cover much of Great Barr, had a combined electorate of 18,840 adults.[4]
The urban district of Perry Barr was ceded to Birmingham, then in Warwickshire, in 1928.
Expansion continued after the war, and during the 1960s the area received a motorway link when Junction 7 of the newly built M6 motorway was opened on the A34. It is also located close to the starting point of the M5, which can be accessed just one mile (1.6km) northwards on the M6.
On 11 August 1975, eight-year-old local schoolgirl Helen Bailey was found dead from a single knife wound, in woods near Booths Farm. Her killer was never found.
Kidnapper Michael Sams abducted estate agent Stephanie Slater from a house in Turnberry Road, Great Barr before holding her for eight days in January 1992. Following receipt of £175,000 ransom, Sams released her. Police arrested him three weeks later and he was sentenced to life imprisonment for abducting Slater and murdering Leeds prostitute Julie Dart.
The Scott Arms junction, the traditional centre of Great Barr.
However, the name is also loosely applied to a swathe of the West Midlands bounded by junction 8 of the M6 motorway in the west, the Birmingham – Walsall railway line (part of the former Grand Junction Railway, opened in 1837, and including Hamstead railway station, formerly called Great Barr station) and Perry Barr to the south, Kingstanding to the east, and the open countryside of Barr Beacon to the north.
Street name signs on Birdbrook Road, Great Barr, Birmingham, showing old "Birmingham 22" (top) and modern "B44" postcodes.Street name sign on Hamstead Road, Great Barr, Birmingham, showing the "B43" postcode
Barr Limestone is a type of rock first identified in Great Barr.[5] The specific name of the fossil trilobite species Bumastus barriensis, roughly meaning "of Barr", comes from its common name among collectors, the "Barr trilobite", referring to its plentiful occurrence in these formations, at Great Barr.[6]
Places of interest
Bishop Asbury Cottage (incorrectly named as "Bishop Ashbury's Cottage" on Ordnance Survey maps), was where Francis Asbury, the first American Methodist Bishop, was raised. It is owned by Sandwell Council and is Grade II listed. It is open by appointment for group visits, and opens occasionally to the general public.
Red House Park is open to the public and provides important amenities for the local community. It is owned by the Sandwell Council. In the grounds are both the Red House itself and an obelisk erected in memory of Princess Charlotte who died in childbirth in November 1817. The Red House, a country house also used a convalescent home, and then a community centre, is Grade II listed building, but is no longer open to the public, having been sold in 2015 and converted to residential apartments.
Birmingham Canal Navigations' Tame Valley Canal runs through Great Barr, from Piercy Aqueduct at Hamstead, along a cutting in 200-million year old sandstone, under Freeth bridge at Tower Hill, under the A34 and into Perry Barr Locks at Perry Barr.[7]
Dean Smith, Former Walsall football player and manager, former head coach of Aston Villa and Norwich City, born in Great Barr and attended Dartmouth High School.
Great Barr is well served with a number of primary and secondary schools. Great Barr School is the largest single-site school in the country with over 2,400 pupils on roll.
Primary schools
Barr View Primary School
Beeches Infant School
Beeches Junior School
Calshot Primary School
Dorrington Road Primary school
Ferndale Primary School
Glenmead Primary School
Greenholm Primary School
Grove Vale Primary School
Hamstead Infant School
Hamstead Junior School
Holy Name RC Primary School
St Margarets CE Primary School
St Mark's RC Primary School
Whitecrest Primary School
Meadow View Primary School
Pheasey Park Farm Primary School
Secondary schools
Fortis Academy is a mixed school catering for children aged 11 to 19.
Q3 Academy Great Barr (formerly Dartmouth High School) is a mixed academy catering for children aged 11 to 19.
Barr Beacon School is a mixed school catering for children aged 11 to 19.
Perry Beeches does not have a 'Primary' School it has two separate schools Beeches Infant School and Beeches Junior School.
The Perry Beeches Campus is the largest school campus in Birmingham and houses 5 schools: Perry Beeches Nursery School, Beeches Infant School, Beeches Junior School, Arena Academy and Priestley Smith School for the Visually Impaired.
College
James Watt campus of Birmingham Metropolitan College in June 2010
The James Watt campus of Birmingham Metropolitan College is at the junction of Beeches Road and Aldridge Road, at the Old Oscott side of Great Barr. The buildings were originally Brooklyn Technical College.
Bibliography
Asbury, Francis, "The Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury" 1st edition 1821, republished Nashville and London, 1958
White, William, "The History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire", Sheffield, 1834
Woodall, Richard, "The Barr Story", Aldridge, undated, (1950?)
Related Research Articles
Francis Asbury was a British-American Methodist minister who became one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. During his 45 years in the colonies and the newly independent United States, he devoted his life to ministry, traveling on horseback and by carriage thousands of miles to those living on the frontier.
West Bromwich is a market town in the borough of Sandwell, West Midlands, England. Historically part of Staffordshire, it is 7 miles northwest of Birmingham. West Bromwich is part of the area known as the Black Country, in terms of geography, culture and dialect. West Bromwich had a population of 103,112 in the 2021 Census.
Wednesbury is a market town in Sandwell in the West Midlands County, England - historically in Staffordshire. It is located near the source of the River Tame, and is part of the Black Country. Wednesbury is situated 5 miles (8km) south-east of Wolverhampton, 2.7 miles (4.4km) south-west of Walsall, and 7.3 miles (11.8km) north-west of Birmingham. At the 2011 Census the town had a population of 37,817.
Sandwell is a metropolitan borough of the West Midlands county in England. The borough is named after the Sandwell Priory, and spans a densely populated part of the West Midlands conurbation. Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council defines the borough as the six amalgamated towns of Oldbury, Rowley Regis, Smethwick, Tipton, Wednesbury and West Bromwich. Rowley Regis includes the towns of Blackheath and Cradley Heath.
Bishop Asbury Cottage is a 17th-century cottage on Newton Road, Great Barr, England, known for being the boyhood home of Francis Asbury, one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. It is now a museum in his memory.
The River Tame is a river in the West Midlands of England, and one of the principal tributaries of the River Trent. The Tame is about 95 km (59 mi) long from the source at Oldbury to its confluence with the Trent near Alrewas, but the main river length of the entire catchment, i.e. the Tame and its main tributaries, is about 285 km (177 mi).
Perry Barr is a suburban area in north Birmingham, England. It is also the name of a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. Birmingham Perry Barr is also a parliamentary constituency; its Member of Parliament is Khalid Mahmood.
Bloxwich is a market town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands, England. It is located between the towns of Walsall, Cannock, Willenhall and Brownhills.
Sandwell Valley is an area of green belt in the county of West Midlands, England, on the border of Birmingham and West Bromwich, with Walsall at its northern end.
Perry Beeches is an area of Great Barr, Birmingham, England, within the parliamentary constituency of Perry Barr.
Handsworth Wood is a suburb of Birmingham in the West Midlands County, England.
Charlemont with Grove Vale is a political ward in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the English Midlands constituency of West Bromwich East. This Sandwell ward population as taken at the 2011 census was 11,964.
Hamstead railway station serves the Hamstead, Great Barr and Handsworth Wood areas of Birmingham, England. It is located at the junction of Rocky Lane and Old Walsall Road, Hamstead, at Birmingham's border with the borough of Sandwell. It is situated on the Chase Line, part of the former Grand Junction Railway, opened in 1837. The station, and all trains serving it, are operated by West Midlands Trains.
Hamstead is an area straddling the border of Birmingham and Sandwell, England, between Handsworth Wood and Great Barr, and adjacent to the Sandwell Valley area of West Bromwich. Hamstead Colliery was worked from the 19th century to the 1960s, with much housing built for the miners. Today the area is still referred to as Hamstead Village.
The Tame Valley Canal is a relatively late (1844) canal in the West Midlands of England. It forms part of the Birmingham Canal Navigations. It takes its name from the roughly-parallel River Tame.
Newton Road railway station was a station of the London and North Western Railway in Sandwell between West Bromwich and Great Barr, England. It lay between Hamstead and the later Tame Bridge Parkway stations on what is now known as the Chase Line.
St Paul's Church, Hamstead is a Grade II listed Church of England parish church in Birmingham, England.
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