C of E
Harborne – St Faith & St Laurence Balden Road / Croftdown Road ( O. S. GR. SP 018848 )
Originated as a mission room, known as St Faith’s in Balden Road. From 1906 it was licensed as a mission of St Peter’s Harborne. Consecrated in 1937. A parish has been assigned out of St Peter’s Harborne, and Christ Church, The Quinton, in 1933.
Registers at Birmingham Central Library – Archives department
Baptisms 1933-1949
Marriages 1938-1974
Harborne – St John Clarence Road
Registers at Birmingham Central Library – Archives department
Baptisms 1858-1963
Marriages 1859-1949
Harborne – St John Clarence Road
Registers at Birmingham Central Library – Archives department
Baptisms 1858-1963
Marriages 1859-1949
Harborne – St John the Baptist St John’s Road /High Street ( O. S. GR. SP 0384 approx )
Consecrated in 1858. A parish was assigned out of St Peter’s, Harborne, in 1859, and enlarged by part of St Augustine’s, Edgbaston, in 1906. A Toc H in Wentworth Park Avenue was licensed for public worship from 1929- 30, and Moor Pool Hall from 1959. St John’s Church itself was destroyed by enemy action in 1941. In 1960 a new church was consecrated on the site of the church hall ( formerly the church school) in High Street.
Registers at Birmingham Central Library – Archives department
Baptisms 1858 – 1963
Marriages : None due to bomb damage – from April 1941 marriages solomised at St Peter’s Harborne
Harborne – St Peter (was Staffordshire) Old Church Road / Vicarage Road (O.S. GR. SP 029839 )
Ancient Parish
The ancient parish church of St Peter originally Halesowen, but by 1279 the church through a complex journey through time. In 1884 it passed to the Bishop of Lichfield. Then transferred to the Bishop of Birmingham on the foundation of the diocese. Harborne Church was not mentioned until the early 13th Century. Edgbaston was originally a chapel of Harborne but by the end of the Middle Ages it was infact independent though it was still called a curacy. The part of the ancient parish of Harborne which is now in Birmingham was never subject to the same degree of over population as the part which is now Smethwick ; Smethwick became separated ecclesiastically from Harborne in 1842. Church extension in Harborne was less intense than in nearly all the other parishes now in Birmingham . A chapel at Smethwick had been founded in 1732, and to this a parish was assigned out of Harborne to the new church of St John the Baptist, Harborne, in 1859.The church of St Faith and St Laurence which originated as a mission church of Harborne in 1906, became a parish church in 1933, the new parish being created partly out of Harborne parish. A room in Park Road called St Paul’s mission room from 1906, was licensed for public worship from 1992 – 1926.
Neighbouring parishes
West Bromwich, Handsworth, Yardley, Kings Norton, Northfield, Halesowen, Oldbury.
Registers at Birmingham Central Library – Archives Department
Baptisms 1538-1993 some withdrawn
Marriages 1538-1995 (includes some banns) some withdrawn
Burials 1538-1998 some withdrawn
Registers of confirmations 1915-1986
Registers of banns 1762-1991
Plan of parish c 1810
Survey of parish 1827-28
Bishop’s Transcripts at Lichfield
Baptisms 1660-1837
Marriages 1660-1837
Burials 1660-1837
Baptisms and Burials missing 1838-1849 and 1852-1855
Non Conformist
Baptist – High Street Harborne
Chapel was built in 1864/5 and enlarged in 1877. The church formed in 1854 originated as a “village station” of Bond Street Hockley in 1787. After the Harborne Baptist’s met in a private house and subsequently at the Fish Tavern North Road Harborne until 1836. The first chapel was purchased from the Congregationalists. This was probably the Union Chapel built about 1820., and used in 1851 jointly by Baptists and Congregationalists. From 1887 to 1910 Harborne Chapel had charge of the Old Bond Street mission at Beeches Lane Quinton.
Brethren – Lonsdale Road Harborne
Gospel hall was registered for public worship in 1935. There was a Brethen’s meeting in Harborne in 1892,
Church of Christ – Harborne
Meeting was in existence in 1892.
Congregationalists and Independents – Harborne
Union Chapel 1820 – 1835 (see Baptists)
Methodists – Court Oak Road Harborne
Chapel, was registered for public worship by the Primitive Methodists in 1921.
Methodists – South Street Harborne
Chapel was opened by the Wesleyans in 1868, probably to replace the Vivian Street chapel.
Registers at Birmingham Central Library – Archives department Baptism 1848 – 1965
Marriage 1887 – 1980
Methodists – Vivian Road Harborne
Chapel was sold to the Roman Catholics and reopened in 1870 as St Mary’s Church. It is probably identifiable with the “Harborne Heath” Wesleyan chapel, built 1839. The Wesleyan church appears to have moved in 1868 to a new chapel in South Street. Harborne.
Salvation Army – High Street Harborne
Hall was registered for public worship in 1915, in place of South Street.
Salvation Army – South Street Harborne
Hall was registered for public worship from 1902 to 1915.
Spiritualists – High Street Harborne
Mission room was in use by Christian Spiritualists in 1954.
The Christian Community – Wentworth Road Harborne
” The Moorlands” was acquired in 1950 as the residence for a “family” community of six to eight people, and as a meeting place for the Birmingham church.
Roman Catholic
St Mary 1870 Vivian Road (O.S. GR. SP 0384)
Mission was established by the Passionist Fathers in 1870. and a church was opened in 1870 in a former Wesleyan chapel. It became the school in 1874 and a new conservatory in the new monastery was used as a chapel until the new church was opened in 1877. It was consecrated in 1932.
Gazetteer / Directory Entries
HARBORNE, a parish in the southern division of the hundred of OFFLOW, county of STAFFORD 3 3/4 mike (S. W. by W.) from Birmingham, containing with the hamlet of Smethwick, 3350 inhabitants. The living is a vicarage, rated in the king’s books at £4, endowed with £200 private benefaction, and £ 1200 royal bounty, and in the peculiar jurisdiction and patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield. The church, dedicated to St. Peter, has a tower in the later style of English architecture, and has lately received an addition of three hundred and sixty sittings, of which two hundred and sixty are free, the Incorporated Society for the enlargement of churches and chapels having granted £250 towards defraying the expense. A school room has been endowed by Mr Henry Hinckley with three tenements producing an income of £24. 15. a year, for which sum forty children receive free instruction. [Lewis 1831]
