Friends of Birdcage Walk
and St Andrew's Churchyard

Mention Birdcage Walk to Clifton residents, and many will say, "Ah, but it's not really in the churchyard, it's in Victoria Square".

This was the case originally, as this Vaughan postcard of Victoria Square from the late 1800s shows:

Bird Cage Walk, Victoria Square, 1890s    (Vaughan  postcard BRO43207/14/10)

whereas the path through the churchyard was known as  Church Walk, or  Church Avenue:

Church Avenue , 1890s   ( Vaughan postcard BRO17563/1/422)

or simply The Avenue:

The Avenue, c. 1910    (Vaughan postcard BRO43207/14/16)
 

but Birdcage Walk seems to have been in use for the churchyard path by the early 1900s:

The Birdcage Walk, early 20th Century    ( Vaughan postcard BRO 43207/14/11) 

and by the 1930s the Vaughan postcards were giving both names to identical images:

Birdcage Walk, 1933     (Vaughan postcard BRO43207/14/12)

The Avenue, 1930s    (Vaughan postcard BRO43207/14/6)

Birdcage Walk and Victoria Square now:

 Which looks more like a birdcage?