Park Side Excavations

January 1934

PARK SIDE, LITTLE PARK STREET GATE, AND DISTRICT

On the south side of Parkside were the quarries from which Richard the Second gave the stone for the building of part of the city walls, and, up to the present time, are called by the old residents "Park Hollows." Parkside, as will be seen to-day, is made up on a slope from "St. John Street," or "Dead Lane," as it used to be called, rising to its highest point where the city wall stood. It is most probable that the Corporation of 1423 or thereabouts made this up to the string course of the wall, thus it would be a pillar of strength to the wall at the inside of the City, and leaving about 5-ft. of the wall as a battlement to protect the soldiers who watched over the defence of the city. In 1423, a sum of 5/- was paid for an earthwork, possibly part of this embankment. It will be noticed the same earthwork extends along Much Park Street and in 1430, the Carmelites, or White Friars, asked permission of the Corporation to make an earthwork from New Gate square tower (corner of White Friars' Street) to the round tower or half round tower at the top of Gulson Road (then called White Friars' Mill Lane) which tower was built the same year at a cost of £77-13-4. This earthwork is to be seen to-day.

Coming again to the Parkside, it has been recorded that a burial ground was there, but recent excavations reveal that no disturbance of the ground had taken place from the level of the present roadway. In one garden beneath the made-up ground, a large heap of round boulder stones were found, which, no doubt, had been used for ammunition as it is on record that the women carried stones and helped in the protection of the walls. It was in 1641 that Charles the First attacked the city, coming from Whitley Abbey, and the citizens deciding not to receive him with his 400 men, he attacked the walls from the Park and off Styvechal Hill. In readiness for this, 300 soldiers were despatched from Birmingham, to give us assistance, and the enemy being repulsed, made their way to Stoneleigh Abbey.

As no gardens were allowed to be made within 20 feet of the wall, one can visualise the soldiers marching to and fro on the earthwork inside the wall, with a fourteen feet drop on the outside of the wall, besides the ditch which would be where the present roadway now is, and about 9 ft. deep by 12 ft. wide.

In the year 1643, after finding the quarries had become a menace to the city by the protection they gave to the enemy as trenches, it was decided to fill them in, and the men being engaged in strengthening the walls and protecting the city, the Quaker women decided to do this work. Groups of women went into the quarries with a leader named Adderley, who carried a club on her shoulder, and each with a mattock and spade, worked until evening, when Mary Herbert fired off a pistol as a signal and marched through Little Park Street Gate home. A wall which divided the Little Park of twenty-three acres from the Large Park was also pulled down as it also afforded shelter for the enemy. This year there was also an extra Tower built along the Parkside, and its foundations were discovered a few years ago, being about six yards square and was made for cannon to be placed in at each corner.