Sedgley’s Top Victorian Photo?

Sedgley Bull Ring – Circa 1900

A small crowd gathered to watch a ‘dancing bear’. Not a regular feature of the village centre, but probably a means of advertising a local fair, circus or theatre show.

The house just visible on the left belonged to the butcher John Conway Fox, and the steeply pitched single storey building was a ‘coffin shop’ separated from Hilton’s house by the entrance to Hilton & Caswell’s builders yard. In the background was the imposing, if incorrectly named, Manor House, occupied by Abner Farnworth.

If it was a Victorian picture then steam trams still ran through the Bull Ring illuminated by the single gas lamp.

And the man behind the camera? Our money is on John Eggington, the Bull Ring based chemist, who was in an ideal spot to see all the comings and goings and had the expertise to reproduce high quality prints.

For those of you struggling to connect the photograph with today's layout; John Conway Fox's house is where today's Clifton is sited. The shadow in the foreground comes from the building which housed Eggington's shop, now the site of a branch of the Birmingham Midshires Building Society.