Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for KINGS-NORTON

KINGS-NORTON, a small town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district, in Worcester. The town stands adjacent to the Birmingham and Bristol railway and to the Birmingham and Worcester canal, 5½ miles SW of Birmingham; was a place of some importance, with a weekly market, in the time of James I.; and has now a station on the railway, a post office‡ under Birmingham, and fairs on 6 May and the first Monday of Oct. The parish extends to the boundaries with Warwickshire and Staffordshire; is divided into the yields of Headley, Moseley, Moundsley, and Rednal, and contains the cha pelries of Balsall-Heath, Kings-Heath, and Moseley, parts of the-chapelries of Withall, Lickey, and Yardley-Wood, and the hamlet of Tanners-Green. Acres, 12, 132. Real property, £61, 300. Pop. in 1851, 7, 759; in 1861, 13, 634. Houses, 2, 790. The property is much subdivided. The manor belongs to W. F. Taylor, Esq. Hawkesley House belonged, in the time of the civil wars, to the Middlemore family; was then burnt down by the royalists; and was succeeded first by a moated mansion, and then by a modern farm house. Moundsley Hall is the seat of T. Lane, Esq.; Hazlewell Hall, of T. Howkins, Esq.; Kings-Heath House, of T. Adkins, Esq.; Barnbrook Hall, of Mrs. Perry; Colmers, of T. W. Round, Esq.; Breedon House, of J. Baldwin, Esq.; Wychall House, of A. A. Ellis, Esq.; and Cotteridge, of W. Lort, Esq. There are likewise several other mansions and numerous villas. Lifford estate had a monastic establishment prior to the Conquest; has a mansion of the time of James I.; belonged to Viscount Lifford in the time of George III.; and was purchased in 1770, by Thomas Dobbs, who acted a conspicuous part in the forming of the Birmingham and Worcester and the Birmingham and Stratford canals. A tunnel of the former of these canals, within the parish, is 16 feet wide, 18 feet high, and nearly 2 miles 1ong. There are extensive paper mills, india rubber works, rolling mills, bayonet and gun barrel manufactories, and a screw factory, -the last built in 1862. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Worcester. Value, £250. * Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Worcester. The church is chiefly in the decorated English style; has a very fine tower and spire: and was repaired in 1857, at a cost of £1, 200. A schoolchurch was built at Strutley in 1863. The chapelries within the parish are all separate benefices. There are, in varions parts, chapels for Independents, Baptists, and other dissenters. A grammar school, at the town, was founded by Edward VI.; has £13 a year from endowment; and contains a library which was 1eft by the Rev. Mr. Hall, a minister of the parish who became nonconformist. Other public schools are in other parts. Charities, £95.

The sub-district contains also Beoley parish, and comprises 16, 612 acres. Pop., 14, 316, Houses, 2, 941.—The district comprehends also the sub-district of Edgbaston, containing the parishes of Northfield and Edgbaston, -the latter electorally in Warwickshire; and the sub-district of Harborne, conterminate with the parish of Harborne, and electorally in Staffordshire. Acres, 28, 404. Poor rates in 1863, £15, 453. Pop. in 1851, 30, 871; in 1861, 47, 349. Houses, 9, 162. The increase of pop. was mainly in parts containing prosperous suburbs of Birmingham. Marriages in 1863, 654; births, 1, 664, -of which 62 were illegitimate; deaths, 906, -of which 418 were at ages under 5 years, and 16 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 6, 382; births, 12, 388; deaths, 6, 697. The places of worship, in 1851, were 12 of the Church of England, with 5, 585 sittings; 1 of the English Presbyterian church, with 200 s.; 1 of Independents, with 258 s.; 4 of Baptists, with 710 s.; 1 of Lady Huntingdon s Connexion, with 120 s.; 1 of Unitarians, with 285 s.; 5 of Wes1eyan Methodists, with 921 s.; 2 of New Connexion Methodists, with 228 s.; 4 of Primitive Methodists, with 266 s.; 2 of the Wesleyan Association, with 174 s.; and 1 undefined, with 224 s. The schools were 16 public day schools, with 1,892 scholars; 61 private day schools, with 1, 374 s.; 29 Sunday schools, with 3, 163 s.; and 1 evening school for adults, with 8 s. The workhouse is in Kings-Norton; and, at the census of 1851, had 116 inmates.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a small town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Kings Norton Ch/CP       Kings Norton SubD       Kings Norton RegD/PLU       Worcestershire AncC
Place: Kings Norton

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