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In 1783 William Hutton wrote an account of a circular route around what was at the time a much smaller town of Birmingham, a tour of around 7 miles compared to the 26 miles of the number 11 bus.
“Birmingham is by much the smallest parish in the neighbourhood, those of Aston and Sutton are each about five times as large, Yardley four, and King’s-Norton eight. … Let us perambulate the parish from the bottom of Digbeth thirty yards north of the bridge. We will proceed southwest up the bed of the river with Deritend in the parish of Aston on our left. Before we come to the floodgates near Vaughton’s Hole, we pass by the Longmore, a small part of King’s-Norton. Crossing the River Rea, we enter the vestiges of a small rivulet yet visible, though the stream had been turned, perhaps, a thousand years, to supply the Moat. We now bear rather west, nearly in a straight line for three miles to Shirland brook with Edgbaston on the left. At the top of the first meadow from the River Rea, we meet the little stream abovementioned, in the pursuit of which, we cross the Bromsgrove road, a little east of the first milestone. Leaving Banner’ marlpit to the left, we proceed up a narrow lane crossing the old Bromsgrove road, and up to the turnpike at the five ways in the road to Hales Owen. Leaving this road also to the left, we proceed down the lane towards Ladywood, cross the Icknield street, a stone’s cast east of the observatory, to the north extremity of Rotten Park. We now meet with Shirland brook which leads us east and across the Dudley road at the seven miles tone, having Smethwick in the county of Stafford on the left down to Pigmill. We now leave Handsworth on the left following the stream through Hockley great pool; cross the Wolverhampton road and the Icknield street at the same time down to Aston furnace, with that parish on the left. At the bottom of Walmer-lane we leave the water, move over the fields nearly in a line to the post by the Peacock upon Gosty-green. We now cross the Lichfield road down Duke-street, then the Coleshill road and the A B house. From thence down the meadows to Cooper’s mill; up the river to the foot of Deritend bridge; and then turn sharp to the right, keeping the course of a drain in the form of a sickle, through Jonh a Dean’s hole, into Digbeth, from whence we set out.”
The description (above) is from the 1976 edition of An History of Birmingham by William Hutton, with a new introduction by Christopher R. Elrington.