Winfield Brass Co.

hi all..last year i took great pleasure in following the progress of an archaelogical dig that took place in a car park in between the symphony hall and baskerville house...the ground is to be where the new central library is now being built..winfields was one of if not the biggest brass works in birmingham in the mid 1800s...many artifacts were uncovered during the dig whick will be kept in the musuem and a full report will be published in about 18 months..amongst other things uncovered were hundreds of blue bricks which were invented by thomas walker who is buried at key hill cemetary..by going through the proper channels i was able to aquire quite a few of these bricks which otherwise were only going to be skipped..i do feel that if a little forthought had gone into it by the powers that be these bricks could have been put to a very good use..ie why not ship them all over to somewhere like the black country museum and use them for making pathways etc...again to easy a solution..anyhow some of them have found a very fitting resting place as they now make a lovely small patio in front of thomas walkers gravestone at key hill and i have some in my back garden.....there is nothing left now of what you will see in my pics as it was all dug up to make way for the foundations of the new library...yet another piece of brum history gone forever and it upsets me greatly...it all started with an article in the evening mail and the rest as they say is history...

lyn