The Vale (Birmingham)

 park, Grade II Listed (UK)

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In 1786 Sir Henry Gough (created Lord Calthorpe in 1796) granted the first building leases on his estate adjoining Edgbaston Hall (qv). In 1791 the Birmingham and Worcester Canal Act allowed the construction of a canal which divided existing agricultural holdings; this is shown on J Piggott-Smith's Map of 1825. The first building lease on the site was granted in 1816, with further leases being granted in the 1830s and 1840s. In the late 1830s a new road, Edgbaston Park Road, was constructed to the south of the site, opening up a further building plot on which a villa known as The Vale was built; these developments are shown on Piggott-Smith's manuscript map of c 1851 (BCL). The villas on what is now the University campus known as The Vale were among the most prestigious on the Calthorpe Estate which had been developed by successive Lords Calthorpe, and were occupied throughout the C19 and first half of the C20 by leading Birmingham families. During or after the Second World War the villas ceased to be private residences and passed into various institutional uses. The C19 villa known as The Vale was acquired by Birmingham University for use as staff accommodation c 1945.

In 1951 Birmingham University had only one purpose-built hall of residence, University House, and the highest number of students in private lodgings of any provincial university (Parklands 1999). By 1954 the University was in negotiation with the Calthorpe Estate to acquire additional land in Edgbaston, and in 1955 its offer of £127,000 for three villa sites, The Vale, Wyddrington, and Maple Bank, was accepted by the Estate. The Vice Chancellor in the Annual Report for 1957 noted that:

'A development plan for the residential estate of 45 acres [c 19ha] bounded by Edgbaston Park Road, Church Road and the Canal, was also commissioned from Sir Hugh Casson and Mr Neville Conder ... Its ruling idea was to preserve the attractive park-like character of this attractive sloping site, by placing residential halls in clusters among trees, and by turning the low-lying damp centre of the site into a lake. This idea was welcome, because the University has been generously admitted into Edgbaston and the Calthorpe Estate, and would wish to preserve as far as possible the green and gracious appearance of this part of Birmingham'. (Birmingham University 1957).

In their 'Report on Proposed Development for Birmingham University' (1957), Casson and Conder developed two alternative proposals, one for villa-type residences set in the existing landscape associated with the C19 villas, and an alternative, inspired by C18 English landscape design, for 'Buildings set in a "natural" flowing parkland and sufficiently far apart not to disturb each other and broken down in scale when approached more closely in order to avoid any feeling of institutionalism.' (Casson and Conder 1957); the latter plan was broadly adopted. Considerable remodelling of the ground form was undertaken, and the new campus was laid out in 1959-60 to a plan by the Birmingham landscape architect Mary Mitchell. This scheme incorporated some mature trees from the mid and late C19 villa gardens, while at the same time creating a new setting for the mid C20 halls of residence designed by Harvey and Wicks, H T Cadbury-Brown, and Tom Mellor. Additional residential blocks were built within the site in the late C20, and today (2000) the site remains in institutional use.

The Vale is an early example of a university campus landscape, and was influential on the design of later campus universities including York University and the University of East Anglia.

historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1001...