The buildings and the history of this neighbourhood are fascinating.  Gradually we would like to collect a wide range of images, information and stories about the history of the neighbourhood.

One of Birmingham’s most energetic historians, William Dague,  has written about Birchfield in his wonderful website “A History of Birmingham Places & Placenames”. To quote a little of what he says:

Fields in the Middle Ages were usually prosaically named after something obvious but significant in order to distinguish them from the other fields: high field, red field, oak field or birch field, for example. The latter is common across the country.

Birch trees are the first to recolonise cleared land that has been left to nature. While almost nothing is known of agriculture in the Birmingham area during the Roman period, it is known from elsewhere that villas and estates were abandoned as Roman Britain came to an end. It may be that here previously cultivated land had reverted to nature and was later cleared again for use by the Anglian settlers. Birch is a tree that grows readily on sand and pebble land such as underlies much of Handsworth. (See also Bartley Green.)

The open fields of Handsworth manor were enclosed as early as the 13th century, but their precise locations are uncertain. However, it is likely that Birchfield was one of the great fields which were divided into strips and shared for labour service among the peasants of the manor.

Birchfield End was one the eight administrative districts of Handsworth in the Middle Ages. It lay along the course of the River Tame. Holford Farm lay in this end.

For much more detail about Birchfield please visit his site here.  There is also this very modest Wikipedia page about the history of the neighbourhood.