A History of BIRMINGHAM Places & Placenames . . . from A to Y

William Dargue - A History of Birmingham Places & Placenames . . .  from A to Y

 

Turves Green/ The Turves Green

B31 - Grid reference SP025783

Use the grid reference on the Ordnance Survey website - Get-a-map. 

Turvis or Turvelond: first record early 17th century

St John the Baptist viewed from the north. Image © Jonathon Billinger downloaded from Geograph, OS reference SP0177, under Creative Commons Licence Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic. See Acknowledgements.St John the Baptist viewed from the north. Image © Jonathon Billinger downloaded from Geograph, OS reference SP0177, under Creative Commons Licence Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic. See Acknowledgements.

This is 'good-grass green'. A medieval green usually denoted open land used for common pasture. This was open land until about 1860s. The location was around the north end of the road now known as Turves Green. The perambulation of the boundaries of Northfield made in 1863 noted that it had been enclosed four or five years previously. The post-Second World War municipal housing estate is built around the road of the same name.


St John the Baptist is a brick-built church with a chancel and south-east tower which was consecrated in 1967.

 

There are five stylised oak statues on the mullions of the west window which were designed by the church's architect G H While and carved by the Bromsgrove sculptor, Robert Pancheri. The figures depict four Old Testament prophets Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah with their traditional attributes: a raven, a branch, a wheel and a scroll respectively. The prophets direct attention to the central figure of St John the Baptist who is shown holding a cross and with a lamb lying on the Bible.


See also Hawkesley and Longbridge.

 

William Dargue 02.03.09

 

 

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For 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps of Birmingham go to British History Online - Maps.

Map below reproduced from Andrew Rowbottom’s website of Old Ordnance Survey maps Popular Edition, Birmingham 1921. See Acknowledgements. Click the map to link to that website.