You can do like below without TryParse or inbuilt functions:
static int convertToInt(string a)
{
int x = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < a.Length; i++)
{
int temp = a[i] - '0';
if (temp != 0)
{
x += temp * (int)Math.Pow(10, (a.Length - (i+1)));
}
}
return x;
}