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In 1383, the sixth of Richard the Second, before the religious fervor subsided that had erected Deritend-chapel, Thomas de Sheldon, John Coleshill, John Goldsmith, and William att Slowe, all of Birmingham, obtained a patent from the crown to erect a building upon the spot where the Free School now stands in New-street, to be called The Gild of the Holy Cross; to endow it with lands in Birmingham and Edgbaston, of the annual value of twenty marks, for the maintenance of two priests, who were to perform divine service to the honor of God, our blessed Lady his Mother, the Holy Cross, St.
About the same time that in New-street was erected upon a suitable spot, an extensive plan, and richly ornamented with paintings and scenery. Expence seems the least object in consideration. An additional and superb portico, was erected in 1780, which perhaps may cause it to be pronounced, "One of the first theatres in Europe."
Those of a public nature generally come under this description, as the free-school, and the hotel, which ought to have fallen two or three yards back. What pity, that so noble an edifice as the theatre in New-street, should lose any of its beauty, by the prominence of its situation!
The gild stood at that time at a distance from the town, surrounded with inclosures; the highway to Hales Owen, now New-street, running by the north. No house could be nearer than those in the High-street. The first erection, wood and plaister, which had stood about 320 years, was taken down in 1707, to make way for the present flat building.
Martin's, in the eighth century; and if the inquisitive reader chooses to traverse the town a second time, he may find its boundaries something like the following. We cannot allow its extension northward beyond the east end of New-street; that it included the narrow parts of Philip street, Bell street, Spiceal street, Moor street, and Park street.
In the new parish I have described, and during the journey, kept on the left, there seems to have been, at passing the act, twelve closes, all which are filled with buildings, except the land between New-street and Mount-pleasant, which only waits a word from the owner, to speak the houses into being.
When the weather would allow, they were ranged in columns in the High-street, and at other times deposited in the Leather-hall, at the East end of New-street, appropriated for their reception. This market was of great antiquity, perhaps not less than seven hundred years, and continued till the beginning of the present century.
As the town increased, other blunders of the same kind were committed, witness the gateway late at the east end of New-street, the two ends of Worcester-street, Smallbrook-street, Cannon-street, New-meeting-streer, and Bull street; it is easy to see which end of a street was formed first; perhaps the south end of Moor street is two thousand years older than the north; the same errors are also committing in our day, as in Hill and Vale streets, the two Hinkleys and Catharine-street.
We now turn up the Alley into New-street, then to the right, which leads us to the Party-wall, between No. 25 and 26, in High-street, late Jennens's, where we began.
Early perhaps in the sixteenth century, when the house of Birmingham, who had been chief gaolers, were fallen, a building was erected, which covered the east end of New-street, called the Leather-hall: the upper part consisted of a room about fifty feet long, where the public business of the manor was transacted.
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