Shifting Boundaries, Shifting Lives

 

These buildings are derelict. Derelict, but not entirely abandoned. Constructed sometime between the wars, the work they were built for ceased within the century. A few years prior to their arrival this was farmland owned by Susannah Lloyd. She seems to have lived in London in the mid-19th century while owning many acres here, leasing them to farmer William Corbett. This bit of land may have also been used or occupied by gipsies, as there was a camp in the open space nearby for at least the latter years of the 19th century. A hundred years earlier, this spot was in the midst of Birmingham Heath, near Brindley's 'crooked ditch' as it ran between Birmingham and Wolverhampton via the Tipton and Wednesbury coalworks, and next to  what was to become Boulton & Watt's Soho Foundry.

Most recently, this bit of land was part of the Smethwick Gasworks, and contained two gasholders. These were knocked down circa 2000. The bare earth is part of the clean-up process, during which wildlife has established itself. At the far side of the open ground (and on this side of the factory) is a water channel called Hockley Brook. The brook once formed part of the boundary between the Staffordshire towns of Handsworth and Smethwick. A few hundred yards to the right it joins Boundary Brook - which for centuries marked part of the boundary of Staffordshire and Warwickshire.

Boundary Brook seems to have all but disappeared. The upper and lower portions were separated by the canal, and the upper portion seems to have vanished underground, while the lower portion emerges from under Wellington Street just as it veers toward the Foundry.

Hockley Brook comes from near what is now Albion football ground, crossing under Rabone Lane, and emerging between the factories. It also passes through two open spaces, remnants of Birmingham Heath that have never been significantly built upon, even now. One of these spaces is the Black Patch Recreation Ground, an open space once used as a tip for foundry waste, then sold and developed in 1910; the other is the Merry Hill Allotments, land leased by M. E. Boulton to the Corporation in 1897. It it still in full use after 107 years, amid claims that it, like the Black Patch, is a toxic waste land. Both the Park and Allotments are scheduled for redevelopment as high-tech offices and a Heavy Goods Vehicle route. The gasholders have been removed in advance of this development, and the factory is said to be on its way out.

In the meantime - for the past fifteen years or so - the factory has been turned to other purposes, such as a series of small workshops, recording studio, storage, and even wildlife habitat. Pigeons fly in and out through broken windows on the upper floors. Plants have re-colonised what was recently an industrial landscape.

This change is one of the interesting things about this place. In hardly more than a couple of human lifetimes it has transformed from open heath with its variety of wildlife to farmland and its domesticated and wild life, then transformed again to some of the most heavily industrialised plant in the world, supporting one of the most industrious societies, then transforming once again to open land with a variety of wildlife. Not quite a full cycle, but a return of sorts.

While none of the heath remains, there are scraps of open space, both old and new. While much of the industry has gone, and along with it the people who made and sustained that society, there are remnants of both industrial processes and of the lives of former occupants. It might also be said that current occupants, both human and industrial, are orphans, derelict, disconnected but surviving. With redevelopment both will be dislocated, moved on, and, like the glaciers, the heath, the farmers, and the gipsies, industrial society will have come and gone. One is reminded of the ways that festivals and circuses transform the landscape briefly and intensely, perhaps memorably, perhaps not.

More to the point, I wonder what would happen if the hardy survivors were encouraged to continue in their current places, rather than being shifted away in yet another round of changes.

Leyland buildings, Foundry Lane, Smethwick