“This is the most interesting place in the world to a Birmingham man” Radical Joe Chamberlain, permanent resident at Key Hill.
At Key Hill (1-6) and Warstone Lane(7-10), twin cemeteries and Grade II listed sites incongruously sited in the middle of the Jewellry Quarter, Birmingham.
Lack of space at traditional burial grounds in churchyards such as Saint Phil’s, and the growth in the nonconformist population who preferred to avoid Anglican cemeteries (or were forbidden to bury their dead there!) led to the establishment of the Birmingham General Cemetery in 1832, which soon became the resting place of mainly nonconformist citizens, later renamed Key Hill (1-6).
So many pioneers of industry and science are buried here that EH Manning deemed it “the Westminster Abbey of the Midlands”!
In 1848 the Anglicans realised they could no longer rely on Saint Phil’s and parish churchyards, especially in the age of cholera, and so constructed their own cemetery, very nearby, in a disused quarry at Warstone Lane (7-10).
What I find most fascinating is the use of (1,2,9) catacombs; as the issue of space clearly hadn’t gone away given how small these plots are, there began the custom of burying several generations of a family in catacombs which are built into the hillside; that at Warstone is three stories high.During wartime these were used as air raid shelters and temporary homes for people whose permanent residence had been bombed.
Speaking of which, there are (6,10) many war graves here; 46 at Key Hill and 64 at Warstone Lane, though these are among the last to be buried here; both are long since closed to new burials (officially closed in 1982 though both had barely been used in decades), which makes them interesting memorials of two civilisations that now seem to have more in common with each other, though they were bitter rivals at the time, than either has with 21st-century life.
They thus had little of the influx of Catholics, then Muslims, that makes a place like Handsworth (opened 1909 and still extant) so different; this, and their small space, has kept them sealed off, despite being a stone’s throw from Jewellery Quarter station. Those who are commuting there today won’t literally end up here, but might benefit from a visit to remind them that their bustling isn’t all there is to the Jewellery Quarter or to themselves!
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 