Nigel Cameron
19 Nov 2012
In March 1903 Richard Chattock of Solihull Hall sold a rectangle of land between the Warwick and Streetsbrook Roads to Joseph Wells for £3,526. The land comprised two fields and parts of two others, amounting to 14 acres. Mr Wells was a butcher in Birmingham. Within two years he had to construct a road, but Mr Chattock retained the right to pass across the centre of the land at all times with carts, and to drive animals, to/from the fields between the road and the village. Private dwellings only could be erected: those north of the cross road must cost at least £600 each (a pair of semi-detached was £1,200) and those south £500. Mr Wells wasted no time in constructing the road – his contractor was Trentham of Cowhays - and the 1904 Ordnance Survey showed Ashleigh Road as a dotted line with no plots defined. The first plot to be sold, however, was No 12 in October 1903 for £273. In 1881 Solihull had a population of 1,600 which rose to 3,700 by 1901. The railway had opened in 1852, and the rapid growth of Birmingham resulted in those who had prospered moving out of the city along the railway lines. Ashleigh Road was directly opposite Solihull Station. By 1921 the population of the village was 6,000.
No 1: It was designed in 1907 by Ernest Wigley for Charles Lander, a jeweller, and his wife Emma. They called their house Estcourt (the houses in the road were not numbered until 1932), and the 1911 Census showed they had two children and a domestic servant. In 1926 Dr Carmichael Thomas, one of Dr Quinet’s partners, bought the property. On 13 June 1934 a garden fete was held in aid of the RSPCA with two distinguished guests – Gertrude Lawrence and Douglas Fairbanks II. The next occupants were the Shepherdsons. Shep was ARP Warden during WWII, and his large handbell was stolen (but promptly returned) by a small boy. On 25 May 1962 the queen visited the borough and Shep drove her up Ashleigh road from the station. Prince Charles visited No 1, now an Abbeyfield, in May 1991.
No 14: James Dutfield bought the 128ft long frontage for Nos 14, 16 & 18 for £500 in 1905. He was a coal merchant, but became the secretary of the Birmingham Building Society, and was active with Joseph Chamberlain in the formation of the Liberal Unionist Party. The house was the first in the road, and one of the first in the village, to have a telephone: Solihull 15 in the 1908 directory. The next occupant was Foster Duggan, a solicitor who was also interested in politics, and the third owner was Charles Hardaker. His daughter, Margaret, kept 45 guinea pigs above the garage and a horse which was not allowed in the rear garden as it was used for bowls.
No 16/18: Hugh Aldis lived at No 16 for 20 years from 1916 but never installed a telephone. He founded Aldis Brothers of Sparkhill, which made the famous Aldis Lamp in WW1. In No 18 from 1930-46 was Ralph de Courcy Deykin and his two elder sisters. All were unmarried. In 1939, knowing that there would be a paper shortage, they stocked their attic with thousands of toilet rolls. All were later confiscated by the Fire Brigade who pointed out the risk from incendiary bombs.
No 17: The home of the architect Ernest Wigley and Edith who he had married in 1904 when he designed the house. It still has its original cast iron nameplate – Kilmore. Foster Gould, manager of Lloyds Bank in Solihull, bought the house in 1925 for £1,200. His younger son, Henry, married Norah Duggan of No 14 in 1933 – one of three instances of young people in the road marrying each other. There were 10 instances of people who moved house within the road as they liked living in it.
No 19: James Ross, a circuit judge, and his wife Clare lived here from 1944. They had many pets, including an unusual one. Terence & Muriel Waters from No 10 were sitting in the lounge after dinner when Muriel felt something on her shoulder: she was terrified. It was the pet rat.
No 20: Designed for Mrs Stokes by William de Lacy-Aherne in 1904, it was notable for its exterior colours: dark brown timbers, cream infill panels, dark green woodwork and pale green bargeboards. Mrs Stokes mortgaged the property with her brother – people rarely used Building Societies, and never banks, for this purpose at this time.
Nos 23/25: Built in 1905/6 on land purchased by Thomas & Arthur Lancaster. Originally there was no fencing between the pair as both were occupied by family members – Martin, their father in No 23 and Arthur in No 25. The Lancasters were keen astronomers and had a large telescope in a thatched building, which was not demolished until the early 1990s. No 23 was used as the Methodist Manse 1958-2003. Mrs Bessie Lancaster died aged 93 in 1995, so the family had occupied the house for 87 years – a record challenged by the Deakin/Dewsbury family of No 33 which has never been put on the market since it was built in 1910.
No 32: Until 1996 when it was demolished, there was a bungalow here built under the Housing [Additional Powers] Act of 1919 which allowed Government money to be used for small dwellings, particularly for those wounded in WWI. The first owner was Major Walter Lindesay. The bungalow was bought in 1989 and rented out, during which time it deteriorated badly. A new house was built, with a date stone of 2000. Opposite is No 35 which, despite being two storied, was called The Bungalow when it was first occupied by John and Beatrice Rowlands in 1908. By the 1930s Kyle & Ruth Patterson lived there, and in November 1940 they accepted an evacuee from the Coventry blitz for a few weeks. Madeline, the same age as their son Jeremy, stayed until the end of the war. They also housed two American soldiers until D Day, whereas the Dewburys in No 33, still with their domestic servant, refused to have anybody.
No 37: Designed by John Burgess Surman in 1927 for Alfred Oxley, the Secretary of the Birmingham School of Art, who specified as few windows as possible facing the street, but who never lived here. It was occupied by his nephew, William. It was built by Charles Grove & Sons of Dorridge within six months.
No 38: Designed in 1922 by Peter Hing, who also designed No 28A in 1954, and had originally been apprenticed to Ernest Wigley. Solihull Council bought the property in 1939 and used it partly for offices and partly for on-duty firemen between call outs from the fire station opposite. Sea Rangers met upstairs 1948-50.
Ashleigh Road was a well to do Edwardian residential street, and so it has remained. Its history is a microcosm of a particular social environment, extending for a century.