But Sir Thomas Gooch, who succeeded him, seeing the great improvement of the neighbouring estates, and wisely judging fifty pounds per acre preferable to five, procured an act in about 1766, to set aside the prohibiting clause in the Bishop’s will.

Since which, a considerable town may be said to have been erected upon his property, now about 1600_l_. per annum.

An acquaintance assured me, that in 1756 he could have purchased the house he then occupied for 400_l_. but refused.  In 1770, the same house was sold for 600_l_. and in 1772, I purchased it for eight hundred and thirty-five guineas, without any alteration, but what time had made for the worse:  and for this enormous price I had only an old house, which I was obliged to take down.  Such is the rapid improvement in value, of landed property, in a commercial country.

Suffer me to add, though foreign to my subject, that these premises were the property of an ancient family of the name of Smith, now in decay; where many centuries ago one of the first inns in Birmingham, and well known by the name of the Garland House, perhaps from the sign; but within memory, Potter’s Coffee-house.

Under one part was a room about forty-five feet long, and fifteen wide, used for the town prison.

In sinking a cellar we found a large quantity of tobacco-pipes of a angular construction, with some very antique earthen ware, but no coin; also loads of broken bottles, which refutes the complaint of our pulpits against modern degeneracy, and indicates, the vociferous arts of getting drunk and breaking glass, were well understood by our ancestors.

In penetrating a bed of sand, upon which had stood a work-shop, about two feet below the surface we came to a tumolus six feet long, three wide, and five deep, built very neat, with tiles laid flat, but no cement.  The contents were mouldered wood, and pieces of human bone.

I know of no house in Birmingham, the inns excepted, whose annual rent exceeds eighty pounds.  By the lamp books, the united rents appear to be about seventy thousand, which if we take at twenty years purchase, will compose a freehold of 1,400,000_l_. value.

If we allow the contents of the manor to be three thousand acres, and deduct six hundred for the town, five hundred more for roads, water, and waste land; and rate the remaining nineteen hundred, at the average rent of 2_l_. 10s. per acre; we shall raise an additional freehold of 4,750_l_. per ann.

If we value this landed property at thirty years purchase, it will produce 142,500_l_. and, united with the value of the buildings, the fee-simple of this happy region of genius, will amount to 1,542,500_l_.

OF THE STREETS,

AND

THEIR NAMES.

We accuse our short-sighted ancestors, and with reason, for leaving us almost without a church-yard and a market-place; for forming some of our streets nearly without width, and without light.  One would think they intended a street without a passage, when they erected Moor-street; and that their successors should light their candles at noon.