Wake Green
Encyclopedia
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
between Moseley
Moseley
Moseley is a suburb of Birmingham, England, two miles south of the city centre. The area is a popular cosmopolitan residential location and leisure destination, with a number of bars and restaurants...
, Kings Heath
Kings Heath
Kings Heath is a suburb of Birmingham, England, five miles south of the city centre. It is the next suburb south from Moseley on the Alcester Road.-History:...
, and Hall Green
Hall Green
Not to be confused with Hall Green, Wolverhampton or Hall Green, SandwellHall Green is an area and ward in south Birmingham, England. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee...
.
Like nearby Sarehole
Sarehole
Sarehole is an area in Hall Green, Birmingham, England . Sarehole, a name no longer used in addresses, was a hamlet which gave its name to a farm and a mill. It extended from the ford at Green Lane, southwards for about a mile, along the River Cole to the Dingles...
it is no longer a postal address. It used to straddle the parish boundary of Yardley
Yardley, Birmingham
Yardley is an area in east Birmingham, England. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee.Birmingham Yardley is a constituency and its Member of Parliament is John Hemming.-Features:...
(Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
at the time) and Kings Norton
Kings Norton
Kings Norton is an area of Birmingham, England. It is also a Birmingham City Council ward within the formal district of Northfield.-History:...
and was an area of 'waste land', that is, land which had not yet been cultivated. In the past it had a post mill
Post mill
The post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. The defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single vertical post, around which it can be turned to bring the sails into the wind. The earliest post mills in England are thought to have...
(windmill) - Wake Green Mill, mentioned in a deed of 1664 when it was in the possession of Richard Grevis. This was just above what is now Moseley Bog
Moseley Bog
Moseley Bog is a nature reserve in the Moseley area of Birmingham in England, at .It was once a secondary reservoir to feed the millpond of Sarehole Mill. Although now drained, the embankment on its eastern side remains...
.
As the outskirts of Birmingham became built upon around the turn of the twentieth century, Wake Green disappeared beneath the growing 'villages' of Moseley and Kings Heath, eventually becoming the centre of a new parish of Saint Agnes, Moseley (now a conservation area
Conservation area
A conservation areas is a tract of land that has been awarded protected status in order to ensure that natural features, cultural heritage or biota are safeguarded...
). Its name lives on in Wake Green Road.
Wake Green Road
Wake Green Road runs from the centre of Moseley for about two miles to the south east. It has several listed buildings along it:- four early 20th century houses (two of them in the St Agnes Conservation AreaConservation areaA conservation areas is a tract of land that has been awarded protected status in order to ensure that natural features, cultural heritage or biota are safeguarded...
) - Moseley SchoolMoseley SchoolMoseley School: A Language College is a large comprehensive school in the Moseley area of Birmingham, England. It has a predominantly male, Muslim student population...
, also known as Spring Hill College - a row of sixteen listed single storey Phoenix prefabsPrefabricated homePrefabricated homes, often referred to as prefab homes, are dwellings manufactured off-site in advance, usually in standard sections that can be easily shipped and assembled....
, built 1945 under the Housing {Temporary Accommodation) Act, and still occupied
It also has the house J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
first lived in (the Gracewell cottages) when he came to England at the age of four, in a hamlet then called Sarehole, opposite Sarehole Mill
Sarehole Mill
Sarehole Mill is a Grade II listed water mill on the River Cole in Hall Green, Birmingham, England. It is now run as a museum by the Birmingham City Council. It is one of only two working water mills in Birmingham, with the other being New Hall Mill in Walmley, Sutton Coldfield.Built in 1542 on...
.
Sources
- Windmills of Birmingham and the Black Country, Joseph McKenna, ISBN 0-947731-10-5