Broad Street was skirted on both sides by private houses, each with its garden in front. Bingley House, where the Prince of Wales Theatre now stands, was occupied by Mr. Lloyd, the banker, and the fine trees of his park overhung the wall. None of the churches now standing in Broad Street were at that time built. The first shop opened at the Islington end of the street, was a draper's, just beyond Ryland Street. This was started by a man who travelled for Mr. Dakin, the grocer, and I remember he was thought to be mad for opening such a shop in so outlandish a place. The business is still carried on by Mr. D. Chapman. Rice Harris then lived in the house which is now the centre of the Children's Hospital, and the big ugly "cones" of his glass factory at the back belched forth continuous clouds of black smoke. Beyond the Five Ways there were no street lamps. The Hagley Road had a few houses dotted here and there, and had, at no distant time, been altered in direction, the line of road from near the present Francis Road to the Highfield Road having at one time curved very considerably to the left, as anyone may see by noticing the position of the frontage of the old houses on that side. All along the straightened part there was on the left a wide open ditch, filled, generally, with dirty water, across which brick arches carried roads to the private dwellings. "The Plough and Harrow" was an old-fashioned roadside public-house. Chad House, the present residence, I believe, of Mr. Hawkins, had been a public-house too, and a portion of the original building was preserved and incorporated with the new portion when the present house was built. Beyond this spot, with the exception of Hazelwood House, where the father of Rowland Hill, the postal reformer, kept his school, and some half-dozen red brick houses on the right, all was open country. Calthorpe Street was pretty well filled with buildings. St. George's Church was about half built. Frederick Street and George Street--for they were not "Roads" then--were being gradually filled up. There were some houses in the Church Road and at Wheeleys Hill, but the greater portion of Edgbaston was agricultural land.