An area by any other name...

Byline: Carl Chinn 

WHAT'S in a name? A lot, for a name is more than just a term to differentiate one person from another, one place from another.

A person's family name binds he or she to all those before who carried that name, all those forebears whose lives are lost but whose genes and blood run through us and help make us what we are.

Yes, of course each of us is a distinct personality and our upbringing and environment deeply affect us and help to make one person an individual - but we are not just isolated beings going through life separately. For good or ill, we are fastened to those of our kin who came before, to those amongst whom we live, and to those yet unborn.

Just as much as we are part of a long line of family history so too are we linked strongly to the place to which we belong and which has helped define us.

A sense of belonging and local patriotism has played a powerful part in English history. Loyalty to our county, our town, our district is shown in many vital ways, from our county regiments to our football, cricket and rugby teams, from our workplaces to our schools, from our places of worship to our municipalities, from the pub we drink in to the shops we spend in.

We cannot escape who we are and where we come from. That is why an understanding and an appreciation of place names is so important for they strike deep into our history and help to explain who we are and whence we come.

But the study of place names is no easy task - take Strutley, for example.

If you asked a Brummie today where it is then it is unlikely that he or she would know, for this place name has fallen out of common use and perhaps is understood only by a few score people who recall their grandparents using the term.

Yet once it popular and was given to the first school in the area - the Strutley Street Branch National School, which was opened in 1863.

So where was this place of education? It was located on Stirchley Street, now called the Pershore Road in Stirchley. Sixteen years later it was replaced by a more modern building opened up by the King's Norton School Board.

By now, the name Strutley was in decline and was not given to the new facility. Instead it was called the Stirchley Street Board School.

In the past some local historians believed that the name Stirchley was an ancient one hereabouts and could be dated back to an Anglo-Saxon times when a 'Stercan lei' was mentioned in a deed of 688.

The Old English word 'stirc' meant a calf and thus the name signifies the clearing or pasture for such animals. Certainly, this is the meaning of Stirchley in Shropshire but the deed in question actually refers to land given to the Abbot of Malmesbury close to the River Avon in Wiltshire and not to Stirchley in Worcestershire.

In fact, the first recorded entry for the Birmingham district goes back only to 1658 when a deed notes Stretley Street. This suggest that the original name was exactly the same as that of Streetly in Walsall and that both arise from the Roman road called Icknield Street by some and Ryknild Street by others.

Starting from the Fosse Way at Bourton on the Water in Gloucestershire this ran to Templeborough in South Yorkshire.

On its way it passed through Alcester and Redditch before heading to Kings Norton.

In fact, there is still an Icknield Street following the line of the Roman road, going from the Kings Norton Golf Course and past Gay Hill in Bromsgove to Walkers's Heath Road in Birmingham.

It is believed that the route then went via the Pershore Road in Stirchley to Metchley Fort by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Edgbaston, and hence through Hockley and Perry Barr to the modern Sutton Park - where a section of the Roman road can be seen. Thence it went to Lichfield and Derby.

Significantly the word street derives from the Latin 'strata via', meaning paved way, becoming 'straet' in Old English.

The Anglo-Saxons used it for the names of settlements close to a Roman road;- hence Stretley in Kings Norton and Streetly in Staffordshire meant the 'ley', the clearing, by the street.

The shift from Stretley to Strutley came about probably because of local pronunciation and in Hutton's History of Birmingham (1783) the place is given as Stutley- street.

By now it had been long forgotten that Strutley derived from the word street and so the word street was added repetitiously.

Six years later, a map published by James Sherrif named Stutley, but then in 1796 another map gave the place as Sturchley Street. By 1846, as indicated in the Post Office Directory, the location was spelt as Stirchley Street.

How did this last change happen?

In language there is a process called metathesis, whereby sounds in a word can be swapped around. This is a longstanding phenomenon. For exampl,e bird was once bryd and horse was hros.

Locally metathesis led to Birmingham becoming pronounced as Brimingham and at a later date Strutley as Sturtley. It is then easy to see how Sturtley could evolved into Sturchley and finally Stirchley.

As it is, in the later 19th century the name of Stirchley Street was adopted by officials as the locality was developed from farms such as Lee House Farm and Dawberry Fields Farm into a workingclass neighbourhood, and it is shown as such on the King's Norton Map of 1894.

Similarly outsiders took on the name and as the place became part of Birmingham, the local folk were swamped and the name Strutley dropped out of use.

In the same manner, over time Stirchley Street became just Stirchley.

There'll be more on Stirchley next week.

Get In Touch

THE Coldstream Guards Association is looking for new members. The group meets each second Wednesday of the month. Phone B T Bardsley on 0779 280 0759.

SEEKING Brian (possibly) Boulton, born in 1965, who live in Edgbaston or Erdington area. Contact Loraine O'Rourke at Irish Welfare & Information Centre on 0121 604 6111 or by email at [e-mail]

SCOTT Lomax is researching the history of George Harry Tyler, killed whilst driving his taxi in the Clay Mills are between Derby and Burton upon Trent in April 1946. Write to 1 Victoria Park Road, Brimington Common, Chesterfield S43 1QP or email [e-mail]

IVOT Rees seeks information about the life of Rev Dr David Richards (1983-1949), extra mural lecturer at Birmingham University. Write to 125 Parkway, Swansea, SA2 8JE or email [e-mail]

CAPTION(S):

XMAS... a Christmas greeting postcard showing the use of the place name Stirchley Street in the early twentieth century.; HORSING AROUND... having fun on Dawberry Fields Farm in the 1920s - the last of rural Stirchley.; OLD...A rural Fordhouse Lane, Stirchley as it was in the early twentieth century, shortly before the area was urbanised.; NEW... Fordhouse Lane, Stirchley as it is now.