June 2011. Lifford is definitely one of the nearly-lost ‘By-ways of Birmingham’. This curious leaning turret is not a mediæval survival, though it is quite old. It belongs to Lifford Hall. This is really in King’s Norton, now a suburb of Birmingham, but originally distant from, and far more important, than Brum. A house probably existed on the site from Saxon times; but a new place was put up in about 1604. The name Lifford is thought to have come from Ireland, when a James Hewitt became Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and was eventually created Viscount Lifford, after a town near Londonderry. He moved here in 1781 and presumably brought the name with him. This turret was a Victorian ‘folly’ – evidently not having very deep foundations, as it seems to be leaning. Or perhaps that is a defect of my photograph? The building is now used as an office block. The rest of the immediate area is not very prepossessing, though not without a charm of its own… A railway passes nearby, and there was once a station at Lifford, but now long vanished & without trace. Kings Norton canal junction is not far away, and there was once a large house nearby in which lived the composer and Professor of Music Granville Bantock, eventually Sir Granville. It, too has been demolished and a housing estate bult in its grounds. Most people who come to Lifford these days have done so because it has one of Birmingham Council’s Domestic Refuse sites. It is in fact, the one I use. Ta-raah!