Aston is one of the oldest recorded areas in Birmingham, mentioned in the Domesday Book nearly a thousand years ago. This report explores the suburb’s layered history—from manor estates and Jacobean mansions to tower blocks and Premier League football. Presenter Richard Gullick traces Aston’s evolution across six locations, revealing how its past still shapes its people and place.
00:00Birmingham's story doesn't start in the bullring. Long before the skyline, the steelworks or the sprawl, there was Aston, a village in its own right.
00:10Mentioned in the Doomsday Book, its name, Estone, meant Easttown. That was nearly a thousand years ago.
00:16Back then, Birmingham was little more than a manor and a market, but Aston already had farmland, a mill and a priest.
00:23What's left of that story begins behind these gates with a Jacobian mansion that once commanded the entire district.
00:31You can chart Aston's growth through its churches. This one, St Peter and St Paul, still carries a 15th century spire, though there's been a church here for even longer.
00:41It once served an area stretching miles in every direction. The old rectory and graveyard tell of centuries lived and lost here.
00:48Now, the church sits alongside warehouses and industry, but that doesn't erase what it once was, the spiritual and social core of early Aston.
00:59Next door is Aston Park. It's easy to miss how radical it was, opening grand landscaped grounds to the public in the 1850s.
01:07Queen Victoria herself did the honours. Cricket, boating, cycling. This was Birmingham's Victorian playground. Even now, it remains a patch of a breathing space in a crowded city.
01:18For many here, it's not history. It's where they go for a five-a-side to teach their kids to ride a bike or just to sit and think.
01:25The past lingers, even if no one's narrating it.
01:28Aston's soul isn't in its landmarks, it's in its streets. These terraces tell a different story of industry, migration and sheer survival.
01:38In the 19th century, workers flooded in. In the 20th, many left or were moved on.
01:43And in the 21st, it's still one of the most deprived areas in Birmingham.
01:47But don't mistake that for weakness. This is where you'll find brummy grit, scratched into shutters, painted on brickwork and passed between generations.
01:59Then came the wrecking ball. In the name of progress, Aston was carved up.
02:03The Aston Expressway split the community in two. Tower blocks replaced terraces.
02:08Streets were rerouted or arised. Aston became a symbol of the city's post-war gamble.
02:14Modernist plans laid over living neighbourhoods. The cost? Community cohesion. The benefit? Debatable.
02:20The view from here isn't pretty, but it explains a lot about why this area still feels bruised.
02:28And yet people still gather here. Football brings life back to Aston, if only temporarily.
02:34Villa Park has stood since 1897 through war, depression, relegation and revival.
02:40It's anchored this part of the city in something bigger than itself.
02:43It's more than a stadium. It's a monument to loyalty, identity and the strange way sport keeps places alive.
02:50Aston is old, yes, but it's not over. It still matters to the people who live here and to the city built around it.
