Biography of Stratford House

TAKEN FROM THE BIRMINGHAM POST DATED JULY 24TH 2008

Jul 24 2008 By Chris Upton

It always strikes me as a miraculous survival. Stratford House sits almost on the middle ring road, between blocks of social housing and furniture superstores, as if it nodded off sometime in the late 16th Century and woke up, late for work, in 2008.

If you’re not acquainted with the place, let me give you a few details.

Stratford House (once called Camp Hill Farm) is a large timber-framed farmhouse, built in 1601 for Ambrose Rotton and his wife, Bridget.

The current name derives from the little lane which once connected Stratford Road with the road into Moseley.

Had the house been built a bit further out – like the Saracen’s Head or Blakesley Hall – its survival would have been more assured. But this was just too close to Birmingham, and by the 20th Century the vultures were circling.

All the land in this area was the property of the LMS Railway Co., which had a large, principally goods station at Camp Hill.

By 1926 they were looking to expand, needing to expand its good yard for the coal trade; Stratford House was in their way.

Let it not be said that the Birmingham of the 1920s was entirely deaf to the call of history and heritage. Prompted by the Civic Society – this was one of the first of their campaigns – the Education Department put forward a proposal to turn Stratford House into a school for the deaf and dumb, thereby preserving at least the frontage of the old house.

The sticking-point, as always, was the question of cash. LMS wanted £3,600 for the land; the Education Dept was willing to pay £1,250, and the rug was pulled even from under this by 1927.

In tricky economic times the City Council was not going to play ball.

By the summer of 1927 the Civic Society had a new suggestion to make to the railway company. Could they not use the rear of Stratford House for the coal merchants, with access from that direction, and keep the all-important frontage ? LMS went away to consider.

Yes, came the reply, but only if money could be found (namely £1,430) to build an additional retaining wall to keep the front of Stratford House intact. This takes us to April 1928, when the General Purposes Committee of the City Council refused, once again, to stump up the cash.

Forced to go it alone, then Civic Society then launched a public appeal to raise the £1,430 needed; the appeal raised a miserly £520.

The campaign was not helped by a break-away move –- by the Stratford House Preservation Fund Committee – to find enough money to move the building to a park and turn it into a home for the “Sons of Rest”. They did not find enough money either.

The fate of Stratford House, it appeared, was sealed.

By June 1929 the goods manager of LMS was informing the Civic Society that he planned to demolish Stratford House forthwith.

Was this a piece of brinksmanship by the railways, because by the following year they had retracted the threat and moved in, and Stratford House remained as LMS offices until 1946, when they moved out again. Only in August 1950, when Stratford House was scheduled as an ancient monument under the Town & Country Planning Act, was the place given any form of protection.

So, miraculous survivor it undoubtedly is for all kinds of reasons over the four centuries of its existence.