Studley Street Names

Street names come about from a variety of causes. They change, too, with time. Associated with people, places or events, they come into common usage by accident, sometimes, as much as design The more important routes take their names from the destinations to which they afford passage: in Studley, the Birmingham and Alcester roads are examples of this. But what of Studley's High Street, once called Swan Street and, before that, Bromsgrove Street? That part of the B 4O92 now called Station Road was, before the coming of the Midland Railway, simply called 'The Common7. Some still call it such: these are the same people who refer to the short stretch between Priory Square and the top of Marble Alley as 'The Fleece' - it is not difficult to understand why.

Reproduced overleaf by courtesy of Warwick Record Office is a sale poster of l859. Describing a Commercial Inn and premises known as 'The Golden Fleece', situate in Bromsgrove Street, it is a significant piece of our village jigsaw puzzle, for at least we know that in 1859 'The Fleece? was in Bromsgrove St. The poster tells us many other things and is a good example of the evidence we must look for when we seek to reconstruct the village story.

It is interesting to note that John Hill was the tenant, for he had earlier been licensee of 'The Swan Inn'. If the Fleece Inn gave its name to 'The Fleece' and the Swan Inn to Swan Street' and both were once called 'Bromsgrove Street', what else might it have been known as? A conveyance of 1864 described the property 'known by the name or sign of "The Golden Fleece" as being bounded on the west by the Street or Road there called Bromsgrove Road'. In 1823, it was described as 'by the Road 1eading from the Spernal Ash Turnpike road towards Four Elms'. By 1882 the word 'turnpike' had been dropped from this description and in 1889 it had been described as 'situate in Marble Alley

A billhead of 1891 shows that W.Humphries carried on the business of draper, milliner, hosier, haberdasher and boot and shoe repairer from his premises at Nos.1 and 2 Marble Terrace. Now we have an ambiguity, for were the names Alley and Terrace interchangeable or was one of them situated within the other? We need more evidence. The billhead tells us, by the way, that James Cottrell of Watts Road paid 6/7 (33 p.) for a pair of boots

The Alcester Road, where it rises to pass the Manor House (since 1981 'Mountbatten House') used to be referred to as 'Squire's Hill' or 'Co-op Hill', an obvious connotation, although both Squire and Co-op have long gone. They are names which crop up still in conversation, as does 'Vicarage View', represented now by the walkway from Alcester Road to Albury Road, and which in deed looked upon the old vicarage, demolished some ten years ago Whether it will look upon another remains to be seen.

Let's return to John Hill. The latest census return available? to us is that of 1881 Useful as they were to local historians, censuses leave us frustrated at which they do not contain. There are no house numbers and in earlier ones sometimes no street names which enable us to be certain where individuals lived. Although named dwellings may usually be identified, others are not and we must rely on our powers of deduction. Some identified residences from the 1881 census are Highland Hill, Hardwick Lodge, Castle Stables and Moat Farm: there are many more. The Morgans of Manor House, needle manufacturers, however, are listed simply as entry No.49 in the Alcester Road section.'

But what of John Hill? The interchangeability of street names seems to have been acknowledged in spirit, if not in fact when a census was taken. John London, a Henley builder and victualler, took the 1851 census, which was witnessed by Thomas Richards, Studley's registrar. Enumeration District 4c was defined as 'All that part of Studley which lies to the west of the road leading from John Hill1s to Redditch; including John Hill's house, Fleece inn and both sides of the road to the top of Studley Common, Green Lane and thence to the right hand side of the road to Miss Hough's'. In l441, Mr.Hollis, a butcher, was both the start and finish of the same area and the enumerator travelled in the same direction 'on the road leading to the Four Elms'. I am unsure where Mr.Hollis was located and not sure about Miss Hough but of John Hill I can be certain: our sale poster provides the primary evidence of his occupation of the Fleece inn. That fact alone underlines his importance to our scene. Later, in 1881 the street names are hardly better defined, for we begin at Mr.Jno.Woodhouse's 'Prospect House' and via The Fleece, The Common and Green Lane we end up at the house of Henry Wilkes Jnr.

And what of today? If we begin at 'Leo's' and proceed by Tony's Handyman, Redditch Printers, the Golf Driving Range, 'Griffin' Inn and past Bob's Wines to Nationwide, we should not be surprised if in 2091 our successors had difficulty in tracing the enumerator's route. And yet it has been done many times before; but the names have changed. Today, the house numbers and house and street names provide opportunities for uniquely locating dwellings in a way that will afford the future historian all the detail he could want. Not for him the excitement of research; just a computer print-out or its 2lst century equivalent. No John Hill of the Golden Fleece to act as his landmark. What a pity.'

Spring 1991 Index