ends,
at Quinton, at a cost of nearly L10,00, was formally opened on October
240 [Transcriber's note: as original] 1882. When completed there will be
accommodation for 120 students.
~Bowling Greens.~--These seem to have been favourite places of resort
with our grandfathers and great-grandfathers. The completion of one at
the Union Tavern, Cherry Street, was announced March 26, 1792, but we
read of another as attached to the Hen and Chickens, in High Street, as
early as 1741. There is a very fine bowling-green at Aston Hall, and
lovers of the old-fashioned game can be also accommodated at Cannon Hill
Park, and at several suburban hotels.
~Boys' Refuge~ is at corner of Bradford Street and Alcester Street, and
the Secretary will be glad of help.
~Boyton.~--Captain Boyton showed his life-preserving dress, at the
Reservoir, April 24, 1875.
~Bracebridge.~--A very ancient family, long connected with this
neighbourhood, for we read of Peter de Bracebrigg who married a
grand-daughter of the Earl of Warwick in A.D. 1100, and through her
inherited Kingsbury, an ancient residence of the Kings of Mercia. In
later days the Bracebridges became more intimately connected with this
town by the marriage in 1775 of Abraham Bracebridge, Esq., of
Atherstone, with Mary Elizabeth, the only child and heiress of Sir
Charles Holte, to whom the Aston estates ultimately reverted. Many
articles connected with the Holte family have been presented to
Birmingham by the descendants of this marriage.
~Bradford Street~ takes its name from Henry Bradford, who, in 1767,
advertised that he would give a freehold site to any man who would build
the first house therein.
~Breweries.~--In the days of old nearly every publican and innkeeper was
his own brewer, the fame of his house depending almost solely on the
quality of the "stingo" he could pour out to his customers. The first
local brewery on a large scale appears to have been that erected in
Moseley Street in 1782, which even down to late years retained its
cognomen of the Birmingham Old Brewery. In 1817 another company opened a
similar extensive establishment at St. Peter's Place, in Broad Street,
and since then a number of enterprising individuals have at times
started in the same track, but most have come grief, even in the case of
those whose capital was not classed under the modern term "limited." The
principal local breweries now in existence are those of Messrs. Holder,
Mitchell, and Bat
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