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Snow Hill (the Road)

I got my first Mouth Organ at the Music shop Maggie when I was about 14 a couple of years ago my mate and myself Bobby got one each, I kept mine till a few years ago and the Lads got hold of it. I wonder if its still knocking around I'll ask should be interesting, thanks for bringing that up Maggie.
Oh by the way I never got a decent note out of it in all those years.
 
Blimmie, I didn't think the area could look any worse then it looks now. It looked a lot worse then.
 
Has it changed at all Froth it was like that in the 1950s I'm sure
 
Hi Lyn.
I dont think this smashing old picture has been on the site before.
It is looking down Snow Hill from Colmore row end. Moss.

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cracking pic moss...froth pretty sure everying on my pic is still there except for everything on the right from the satutation....

lyn
 
Mark Norton has two pics of Snow Hill/Constitution Hill on his site. One is the one Lyn just posted and one taken in 2006. I didn't go that way on this last trip so I can't comment on the state of that area. https://www.photobydjnorton.com/CityCentreOutsideIRR.html

That old pic that mossg posted of Snow Hill I have never seen before but I can remember as a small child (mid l940's) coming up Snow Hill on the No.5 bus and Snow Hill looking very much like that old photo but updated.
 
Hi Lyn,

your pic of the bottom of Snow Hill is just as I remember it - to judge by the cars I'd say it was early 1960's when it was taken. I think black-and-white photos do tend to emphasise the shabbiness of street scenes, but that part of Brum was never really upper-crust at the best of times. The Sally I knew well (ashamed to say...) and also H B Sale Ltd on the other side of Summer Lane from the Sally. My pal worked there, and I'd often meet him when he finished work on Saturday lunch-time. Just ten yards and we'd be in the bar of the Sally. Then there were the various night-clubs in the building on the apex of the corner of Constitution Hill and the street I can never flippin'-well remember the name of.

The music shop to the left of the pic was Yardley's, and I can recall going in to see my mate Mart who worked there, and who'd let me play any guitar I liked, including Stratocasters which would've cost me about a year's pay in those days. And the YMCA next door - I was a member of the am-dram society there, and it was a very up-market and snobbish society too. I can remember the shops to the right of pic being demolished - that would be the early 1970's and I think that water-seepage from the nearby cut got to their foundations, as it did the Sally's. Many times we'd come out of the Sally at about 5.00 am on a Saturday morning and walk up Snow Hill for breakfast at a cafe that used to be somewhere behind St Chad's Cathedral.

Big Gee
 
hi big gee..the area may have been shabby but what lovely memories you have...i must have walked past those shops a thousand times and how i wish i had been camera happy in those days...i used to to work at ash rubber stamp just a little way up..that row of shops are still there...so you used to roll out of the sally at 5 in the morning then...lol...almost as good as me rolling out of the church tavern at 6....happy days...

lyn
 
Big Gee if you look at Jennyanns post just above yours and click the link it will take you to Hortons photos which the photo is the same and its dated 1961
 
Hi Lyn,

If I'd known then what I know now....eh? The Salutation was actually one of many Brum pubs featuring trad jazz back in the 1960's, and very much part of my boozy weekend itinerary. The resident band was The Artesian Hall Stompers featuring Dan Pawson (subject of another excellent thread on this excellent forum). The last gaffer of the Sally was a great Irish bloke called Jerry, and so long as you were prepared to be locked in (literally) you could drink all night at weekends until he or his missus decided to open the doors in the early morning.

The Ash Rubber Stamp Co I actually knew! In the 1970's I ran a small part-time business making and selling stuff for model aircraft, and to save printing costs I used to make my own labels with stamps from Ash! So chances are we must have met! Small world, or what?

The last time I was around that part of the world Constitution Hill was mostly Asian rag-trade shops and premises, very colourful, actually.

Hi Alf,

thanks for your note. I guess it was early 1960's - the Austin A40 and A60 Cambridge cars suggested that.

Big Gee
 
The old Snow Hill picture is a gem. That is a cable tram I suspect and the cable trough can be seen in between the rails.
 
hi big gee...think it was around 72 i would have been at ash rubber stamp...i changed me jobs a lot in those days....mind you those were the days when you could finish at one place on a friday and walk into another on the monday...not so these days...thanks again for your memories...

lyn
 
Beg to differ Lyn I don't think any of my Sons have spent more than a couple of days out of work since they left school. Why because they were taught to take a job to earn money be high or low pay.
Last week my Son Tom walked out of his job as a Chef on Monday and got a job last Friday and he has just walked out of the house to start it this morning.
I don't know how he feels but I've got butterflies for him.
 
well that is good to hear alf...well done to tom and dont worry...he will be fine...

lyn
 
Due to family/work connections this is my favorite part of Brum.
Thanks again Lyn,a gem of a threads as always.
 
I don't remember seeing either of these photos on this forum before. They both show more or less the same view a couple of years apart according to the dates stated 57 & 59.

Phil

CitySnowHill1957.jpg
CitySnowHill1959.jpg
 
glad you like this thread wessex...phil another 2 great pic from you...i cant recall seeing either of them before...

cheers

lyn
 
constitution hill...sorry no date on this one..

pic courtesty of carl chinn
 
Lyn wasn't that on the first photo you posted on this thread before the road alterations
 
Alf
Is a duel carraigeway one where you look into the whites of their eyes and press down on the accelerator ?
 
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