St. James’s in St. James’s Road, was another chapel of ease, consecrated 1st June, 1852. In the same year it had a separate district assigned to it by the Church Building Commissioners.
St. Augustine’s, near the top of the Hagley Road, was built in the year 1867, as another chapel of ease to Edgbaston Old Church, to serve the increasing population of the northern portion of the parish. It was consecrated September 12th, 1868, and cost £9,000. A tower and spire, added in 1876, cost £4,000 more. It has not yet (1886) any district legally assigned to it.
St. Ambrose, a temporary church, in the Pershore Road, is another chapel of ease in the southern portion of the parish. It is the gift of Mrs. Spooner, as a memorial of her late husband, the Rev. Isaac Spooner, vicar of the parish 1848 to 1884.
PARISH OF ASTON.
We have to deal only with the portion of this parish which is included in the Borough, and commence with the chapel of
St. John’s, Deritend, which is the second most ancient church in the town. It is situate just over the Aston side of the stream which divides that parish from Birmingham, and was founded in 1375 by some inhabitants of the hamlets of Deritend and Bordesley, because of the inconvenience of resorting to the parish church of Aston, three miles away. The then Lord of the Manor of Birmingham gave the land, and the inhabitants built the chapel, and by an agreement, still extant, dated 29th May, 1381, and made between the Prior and monks of Tykeford, patrons of the parish church of Aston, the vicar of Aston, the Lord of the Manor of Birmingham, and thirteen of the inhabitants of Deritend and Bordesley, with the consent of the Bishop of the diocese, then called Coventry and Lichfield, the inhabitants of Deritend and Bordesley were empowered to appoint, “at their own charges,” a chaplain to celebrate divine service in a certain chapel in honor of St. John the Baptist there lately built.[36] The chaplain is still elected by the vote of the inhabitants of Deritend and Bordesley, and down to the year 1842 the proceedings did not differ from those of a contested political election. The last election took place June 15th, 1870, when the present chaplain, the Rev. W. C. Badger, M.A., was elected by a majority of 1561 votes over his opponent. The present chapel dates from 1735. There is a mission room in Darwin Street. Part of the district conventionally assigned to it was, by order dated 29th December, 1885, legally created a “Peel district” without a church, by the name of St. Basil’s.
This chapel of St. John remained from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century the only chapel of ease to the parish church of Aston for the increasing population of that part of the town which gradually extended itself into Aston parish. In the early part of this century a genteel suburb had formed itself at the east end of the town, on the Coleshill road, of which the eastern portions of Great Brook Street and Ashted Row are still evidences.
Dr. Ash, a celebrated physician of Birmingham, and founder of the General Hospital, built what Hutton calls a “sumptuous house” there. When he left it to live in London it was altered into a proprietary chapel by a Mr. Brooke, an attorney, who gave his name to the street. The chapel was opened on the 9th of October, 1791, but was sold in 1798 and afterwards became—
St. James’s Chapel, Ashted, consecrated August 7th, 1807. From its close proximity to the cavalry barracks, it was called “The Barrack’s Chapel.” A separate parish was allotted to it out of the Aston parish, in the year 1853. There is a mission room in Vauxhall Road.
Holy Trinity Chapel, at the top of Bradford Street, was the result of a meeting for church extension, held in October, 1818. It was consecrated 23rd January, 1823, and a district carved out of Aston parish was allotted to it in the year 1864. Parts of that district have since been assigned to St. Alban and All Saints’, Smallheath. There is a mission hall in Sandy Lane.