Having collected together a large quantity of it, he
began to erect this building, to represent ruins; and to add to the
deception, there is in the front of the house, in small pebble stones,
the date, 1473; and all this was done, as he informed the writer of
this article, without advancing any other money than the fourteen
shillings per week. It is now nearly overgrown with ivy, and if no
account had been given of the materials with which it is erected,
posterity might have been at a loss to know what substance the walls
were built with. Hubert Galton, Esq. now resides there, who pays rent
for the house, and about fifteen acres of land, more than L100. per
annum, exclusive of the enormous parochial taxes of Birmingham, which
for these premises, from Michaelmas, 1816, to Michaelmas, 1817,
amounted to the astonishing sum of sixty-one pounds and ten shillings,
viz. thirty-six levies for the poor, at 30s. each, three highway
levies, at 30s. each, and two levies for the church, at 30s. each.
In the back ground, beyond this, is seen a glass-house, belonging to
Messrs. Shakespear and Fletcher.
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