Great-granddad spends 50 years drawing entire village on 100ft scroll

15 March 2024 , 11:42

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Maurice Ivor Birch with his wife of 59 years Beryl (Image: SWNS)

A great-granddad has spent half a century drawing almost his entire village on a 100ft scroll he bought for 10 shillings back in 1969.

Maurice Ivor Birch, 82, purchased the massive length of paper from a car boot sale for the equivalent of 50p intending to use it to entertain his four-year-old son. But the self-taught artist soon began adding memories of his hometown of Aldridge, West Midlands, which was to become a lifelong hobby for the next 50 years.

The 30m scroll now features 320 pencil and ink drawings of historic buildings from around the town - some of which he drew from memory as they no longer exist. It includes images of lost pubs, hotels, shops and cottages as well as depicting how Aldridge still looks today and took around 2,560 hours in total to complete.

Dad-of-two Maurice, who has six grandchildren and four great grandchildren, said: "I've pretty much sketched all the buildings of note in Aldridge now. We went to a car boot sale in Cannock when my son was around four in 1969 and I spotted this great big roll of paper for 10 shillings, which is 50p in today's money.

"I thought 'I'm having that' because I used to do little cartoon sketches of animals and creepie-crawlies for my son to colour in and it seemed ideal. I thought I would tear them off but as I began to draw on it, I couldn't bring myself to rip it up. After doing about 80 sketches, I thought 'what else can I do now?'

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Maurice Ivor Birch with his his 'Aldridge on a Roll' project (SWNS)

"So I started drawing buildings of Aldridge where I have lived all my whole life and it grew from there. I thought I'd keep the scroll intact but sketch the local buildings for posterity as so many have long disappeared from the landscape. I now have around 320 sketches of pretty much the whole of the village - how it looked then and how it looks now.

"A lot of the buildings have gone, I managed to draw some from memory while others are from old photographs and history books. Each sketch had probably taken me about eight hours each . It's just been a hobby that has continued to grow for over half a century."

The retired quality engineer has now finally called it a day after filling up almost the entirety of the huge roll from his conservatory at home. He finished off his labour of love with images of King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III - the three monarchs of his lifetime.

Maurice, who has been married to wife Beryl, 78, for 59 years, added: "I think its time to call it a day. I have managed to fill most of it up now but I've lost feeling in my right arm due to suffering strokes. I finished with portraits of all the monarchs in my lifetime and its a nice little piece of history to pass on to the kids and grandkids."

The very first sketch (SWNS)

Maurice's scroll features Aldridge's former railway station, the old Avion Cinema - now a Wetherspoons - as well as cottages, churches and pubs. He added: "I have managed to sketch the whole of the old high street, which is unrecognisable today. I did the old Elms Hotel, the Cook Cottages which dated back to the 1200s, pubs like the Old Swan Inn and Anchor Inn, which are all no longer there."

"I have seen this village change tremendously over the years - it has transformed from a village into a town really. This is a nice way to chart and mark its entire history. But that was never the plan really, it's just something that happened. Hopefully it will be a legacy showing the way Aldridge used to be.

"It was the most beautiful village when I was a boy. It`s still a lovely place to live and I wouldn`t want to live anywhere else but many of the buildings have gone. I've always wished my children could see Aldridge as it was and this way they sort of can."

Rom Preston-Ellis