_Birmingham Antiquities._--I wish to put on record in your journal a
fact concerning the antiquities of Birmingham. There is a street in this
borough, called Camden Street, which after crossing Worstone Lane,
acquires the name of Lower Camden Street. On the right-hand side of
Lower Camden Street (as you go from Camden Street), is some pasture
ground, bounded on one side by a stream called Chub-brook, which
formerly flowed into the old Hockley Pool. This pasture ground shows the
evident traces of a moat, and the foundations of several walls of a
large building. I apprehend this is the spot referred to in Hutton's
_History of Birmingham_, p. 254., fourth edition:
"The lord Clinton and his lady seem to have occupied the
Manor-house, and Sir Thomas (de Birmingham), unwilling to quit the
place of his affections and of his nativity, erected a castle for
himself at Worstone; where, though the building is totally gone,
the vestiges of its liquid security are yet complete."
As the field will probably be built on in a short time, I wish to
identify the spot referred to by Hutton.