The Bird Lane Terrace Land Society

The Bird Lane Terrace Land Society was established in the early part of 1876. It sought to purchase a parcel of land and resell it as 36 plots to the members of the Society . The site fronted what is now Hurcott Road above Long Acre and included the Society laying out the extension of Baxter Avenue from Long Acre to what is now Baxter Gardens. The earlier part of Baxter Avenue had orginally been laid out by the Freehold Land Society in the early 1850's. The Bird Lane Terrace Land Society presents an example of a land club where a small group of local people combined to purchase and develop a piece of land to build housing on.

There is no longer a Bird Lane in Kidderminster. The Borough Corporation sometime between February 1875 and March 1876 changed the name to Hurcott Road. At the time of the expansion of Kidderminster Eastward from The Horsefair towards Greenhill was beginning.

On 24 February 1875 Tovey and Elgood held an auction sale at the Blackhorse Inn, Kidderminster. Lot 1, which apparently did not sell as it was subsequently sold by private treaty. It was described as :-

"All that valuable piece of BUILDING LAND now used as Garden Ground situate in Bird Lane, in the Borough of Kidderminster... in the occupation of Mr George Broom and containing by admeasurement 5a. 1r. 32p., or thereabouts having extensive frontage to Bird Lane and Long Acre and is situated in a most healthy and improving locality and is every way adapted for building purposes."

From the conditions of sale it is apparent that the land was being sold by the executors to a will. The Solicitors from whom the particulars of sale in addition to the auctioneer could be obtained were Saunders and Burcher.

Frederick Burcher will feature promenantly in the account of the Bird Lane Terrace Land Society. As well as being in private practice he was also Clerk to the Borough Magistrates. A plaque honouring his good works for the town can be found at the rear of the Parish Church. However, as this account will show he deserves to be remembered as land profiteer with an apparent conflict of interest between his own and his clients.

On 2 March 1876 Frederick Burcher contracted by private treaty with the Trustees to purchase the Bird Lane site for the sum of £950 with completion on the 24 June 1876.

"Memorandum that the undersigned John Back on behalf of myself and my co-trustee hereby agree to sell by private contract and the undersigned Frederick Burcher hereby agree to purchase the herediments and premises comprised in Lot 1 for the sum of œ950 with purchase to be completed on the 24th day of June 1876 the said Frederick Burcher having this day paid me Ninety Five Pounds as a deposit upon the said purchase witness our hands the 2nd Day March 1876."

On the 27 June 1876 the Bird Lane Terrace Land Society acting through their 3 trustees Charles Cherrill (Dyer) John Lane (Carpet Weaver) and William Starr (Carpet Weaver) the society contracted to purchase the Bird Lane site for the sum of £1748 9s.

This sale was made only three days after the completion of the purchase by Mr. Burcher for £950. This was a paper profit of 85% although Mr Burcher then made further money by lending the money for the purchase to the Society and drawing up the deeds of sale for the plots to the members.

The contract provided for £100 to be paid on execution with a further £100 due on the 25 December 1876 with payments of a minimum of £50 on each of the normal quarter days thereafter. Interest at the rate of 5% per annum was to added each quarter day. It is estimated that this provided for the loan being repaid in 10 years 9 months with the society paying a total of £2250 including the £100 deposit and £501/11/- interest. Half of Burcher's loan was a paper transaction meaning that the oppurtunity cost of Burcher lending the remainder would have been about £250. This means that Burcher profit from the transaction was about £1000.

According to a notice for calling committee meetings and general meetings the Bird Lane Terrace Land Society was established on 23 March 1876 although the printed rules were not adopted until 26 May 1876. These rules provide for each member to pay 10 shillings per share every fourth Friday. This means that over a year each member would pay œ6/10 per year as there would be 13 payments a year. Each half year they would also have to pay towards the interest due.

Frederick Burcher acted as the Solicitor to the Club drawing up the deeds of sale to the individual members. Each of the sales was authorised by the Trustees who gave written instructions to Burcher to transact the sale. This gives details of the name of the member, their plot numbers, the date of purchase and where they were married the date of their marriage.

33 members signed the original rules of the society. No information is given in the rules of the society about the occupations and backgrounds of the members. 21 members including John Lane and William Starr, who were two of the orginal trustees of the Club, did not go onto purchase plots from the Society.

10 of the 12 orginal members purchased only one plots they each bought one plot with only David Trickett and Charles Cherill, who purchased two plots each. Seven of these are shown as weavers or dyers with the other five having a variety of occupations including stocktaker, potato salesman, letter carrier, publican and joiner.

We do not know how the remaining 15 purchasors (who between them bought 22 plots) became members of the Society. The rules of the society allowed members who wished to leave the society to sell their share to the highest bidder after giving the society first refusal. The Club charged a transfer fee of 1/- (5p). Members who were three months or more in arrears were fined six pence (2.5p)per share per month until they brought their account up to date. Eventually when the fines were more than the sum already paid in the member forfeited the shares they held.

The 15 new members represented a different class of purchasor. 4 people purchased 3 plots each, this was the maximum number of shares that any one person could have in a land club. Ashton Phillpots was described as Hotel Keeper. Thomas Ashton Philpots is described as a Gentleman. Robert Wilkinson was shown as a law clerk. Hannah Heath (the only woman) was a Habberdasher who lived in Long Acre and she purchased the 3 plots adjacent to her home. Amongst the 10 people purchasing individual plots is George Law, the Kidderminster civil engineering contractor, although many of these remaining people are described as holding quite ordinary occupations.

The work of the Land Club was finished in July 1882 with the completion of the sale of the 36 plots. The question for us to try to answer is to what extent did the Land Club enable owner occupation?

It is important to remember that the Land Club provided the land it did not build the houses. On this scheme even by 1924 at least 14 plots were undeveloped.