Let us perambulate the parish from the bottom of Digbeth, thirty yards
north of the bridge. We will proceed south-west up the bed of the river,
with Deritend, in the parish of Aston, on our left. Before we come to
the Floodgates, near Vaughton's Hole, we pass by the Longmores, a small
part of King's-norton. Crossing the river Rea, we enter the vestiges of
a small rivulet, yet visible, though the stream hath been turned,
perhaps, a thousand years, to supply the moat. We now bear rather west,
nearly in a straight line for three miles, to Shirland brook, with
Edgbaston on the left. At the top of the first meadow from the river
Rea, we meet the little stream above-mentioned, in the pursuit of which,
we cross the Bromsgrove road a little east of the first mile stone.
Leaving Banner's marlpit to the left, we proceed up a narrow lane
crossing the old Bromsgrove road, and up to the turnpike at the five
ways in the road to Hales Owen. Leaving this road also to the left we
proceed down the lane towards Ladywood, cross the Icknield street, a
stone's cast east of the observatory, to the north extremity of Rotton
Park. We now meet with Shirland Brook, which leads us east, and across
the Dudley road, at the seven mile stone, having Smethwick in the county
of Stafford, on the left, down to Pigmill. We now leave Handsworth on
the left, following the stream through Hockley great pool; cross the
Wolverhampton road, and the Ikenield-street at the same time down to
Aston furnace, with that parish on the left. At the bottom of
Walmer-lane we leave the water, move over the fields, nearly in a line
to the post by the Peacock upon Gosty-green. We now cross the Lichfield
road, down Duke-street, then the Coleshill road at the A B house. From
thence down the meadows, to Cooper's mill; up the river to the foot of
Deritend bridge; and then turn sharp to the right, keeping the course of
a drain in the form of a sickle, through John a Dean's hole, into
Digbeth, from whence we set out. In marching along Duke-street, we leave
about seventy houses to the left, and up the river Rea, about four