~Bourne College,~ erected by the Primitive Methodists and their friends, at Quinton, at a cost of nearly £10,00, was formally opened on October 240 [Transcriber's note: as original] 1882. When completed there will be accommodation for 120 students.
~Bowling Greens.~--These seem to have been favourite places of resort with our grandfathers and great-grandfathers. The completion of one at the Union Tavern, Cherry Street, was announced March 26, 1792, but we read of another as attached to the Hen and Chickens, in High Street, as early as 1741. There is a very fine bowling-green at Aston Hall, and lovers of the old-fashioned game can be also accommodated at Cannon Hill Park, and at several suburban hotels.
~Boys' Refuge~ is at corner of Bradford Street and Alcester Street, and the Secretary will be glad of help.
~Boyton.~--Captain Boyton showed his life-preserving dress, at the Reservoir, April 24, 1875.
~Bracebridge.~--A very ancient family, long connected with this neighbourhood, for we read of Peter de Bracebrigg who married a grand-daughter of the Earl of Warwick in A.D. 1100, and through her inherited Kingsbury, an ancient residence of the Kings of Mercia. In later days the Bracebridges became more intimately connected with this town by the marriage in 1775 of Abraham Bracebridge, Esq., of Atherstone, with Mary Elizabeth, the only child and heiress of Sir Charles Holte, to whom the Aston estates ultimately reverted. Many articles connected with the Holte family have been presented to Birmingham by the descendants of this marriage.
~Bradford Street~ takes its name from Henry Bradford, who, in 1767, advertised that he would give a freehold site to any man who would build the first house therein.
~Breweries.~--In the days of old nearly every publican and innkeeper was his own brewer, the fame of his house depending almost solely on the quality of the "stingo" he could pour out to his customers. The first local brewery on a large scale appears to have been that erected in Moseley Street in 1782, which even down to late years retained its cognomen of the Birmingham Old Brewery. In 1817 another company opened a similar extensive establishment at St. Peter's Place, in Broad Street, and since then a number of enterprising individuals have at times started in the same track, but most have come grief, even in the case of those whose capital was not classed under the modern term "limited." The principal local breweries now in existence are those of Messrs. Holder, Mitchell, and Bates, in addition to the well-known Crosswells Brewery of Messrs Walter Showell and Sons, noted in next paragraph. The principal Vinegar Brewery in Birmingham is that of Messrs. Fardon and Co. (Limited), in Glover Street, which was formed in 1860, and is well worthy of the stranger's visit. The annual output is about 850,000 gallons, there being storage for nearly a million gallons, and 36,000 casks to send the vinegar out in.