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Great Barr Quarry, now ASDA

C

Chris Brennan

proper brummie kid
Has anyone out there have any photographs of the old quarry at Great Barr, which is now a landfill site?
I remember in the late 1970's a few people taking photo's as the lakes were being drained and during the dumping of refuse in the massive holes.
If anyone can help me i would be very grateful, my E Mail is-

[email protected]

Thanks in advance,
Chris Brennan.
 
Chris part of it has been turned into a nature reserve at the side of asda. I will do my best to take a photo for you in the new year and if there are cuttings in our local observer will copy them for you. Have been taking photo's of one of the farms in Pinfold lane this afternoon for another member. The reserve is looked after by volenteers backed by our local counciler Keith Linecor. There are sand lizards to be found in the summer. Bye. Jean.
 
Nick there is still one pool there and is full of newts and frogs. Will take a photo next week. Jean.
 
G G Jean said:
Nick there is still one pool there and is full of newts and frogs. Will take a photo next week. Jean.
Click to expand...
Thanks Jean, think i'm a bit old to swim with the Newts now. Just shows how daft i was when i was younger.
icon7.gif
 
Nick do you remember the daughter of the quarry owner?. Her name was Nannette and married George Bull of Foxhills riding school. Oh bye the way you are never too old but far more sensible [in some cases]. Jean.
 
Near to the present day entrance to Asda, there used to be some (?) cottages, in the 50s, at one of them the owner used to sell cheap bags of fruit from the garden, remember losing a wellie once in some quicksand, what fun :) Dave
 
The only photo I've seen near that area is of the Sand & Gravel works. The photo was taken from the Queslett Rd. I remember the quarry pools, I floated on an 10ft square of ice with some mates one winter ! Also my brother-in-law lost one of his shoes in quicksand somewhere round there.
 
No Jean, the only person i remember was the lad i used to go with Robert Milner i think who i went to Beeches rd School with. We used to hide if we heard someone coming.
 
Was there a Quarry in Kingstanding, have two pics relating to a Quarry but marked as Kingstanding :)
 

bren thats one that I have but marked Kingstanding, have you a second one, on site ? Dave
 
I spent most of my illspent youth in the 1970s shooting various duck, snipe etc over the quarry.
Cops never did quite manage to catch us lol
 
Well I was never a particuarly good shooter, and those ducks soon knew to make themselves scarce if I was around. I was (and still am) a keen birdwatcher and I saw many interesting species over the old quarry. Little Ringed Plovers bred there every year. A Red Necked Phalarope showed up on passage one autumn. At dusk Pochard and Tufted Duck would fly in from the lakes in what was then still St Margarets Lunatic Asylum. Its nice to see that the area is now a nature reserve.
 
Baron you still get idiots [I'm not suggesting you were one Monet] riding and speeding on those scrambler bikes. The police have said "if you can't beet em join em" and they go after them on their own scrambling bikes. Still got to take a photo of the surviving pool and ducks if Monet left any for us. Jean.
 

Called into that Nature park behind Asda today, my first time back to that area (the old Quarry) since 1958,
 
Does anyone that was at Aldridge Road SMB School remember the farm that backed onto the quarry, it must have been in the early 1950s and a pig escaped and ran into the quicksand.
We were all late back from school after watching the rescue attempts, sadly we watched down to the last squeak as the pig disappeared.
At least it taught us a lesson about how dangerous it was.
 
If anybody is interested I was over there around 2 years ago and a guy was fishing there for pike, I saw him pull 2 fish out. :)
 
it was and up the lane which if I remember rightly was called sandy lane was the other part of the works where they dug up and shipped the sand to the queslett road plant . old booths farm house that is no longer standing was also storage bay for blue circle cement . I know it all well has I was born and lived in Ashworth road there was a road between my house and the quarry . I loved the place, in my memory of how it all was i still do, it was my big front garden has a child . I used to wag school ( perry beeches and calshot little school ) over there it was super fun there was always lots of frogs and newts and stickle backs pike and roach in the lakes , a lot of people went fishing over there . In my mad teenage years I was with a bike gang called the mad mob it was our stomping ground and sorry to say although in them days was accepted as one of the scrambler clan that loved to ride there bikes over there . I had a montessa trials bike .. oooo the memories ..I do have some photos somewhere have to try and sort them out . Just ask I'm sure I could tell you lots about this wonderful place ...
 
A 1945 aerial view of the quarry pool by Beeches Road school. Beeches Road in the lower part of the pic with Sandy Lane running central up through the pic past the sand and gravel quarry. The school's air-raid shelters can be seen in this pic. Sandy Lane was a good hill for sledging down when we had snow ...
Quarry.jpg
edit ... faulty forum link removed.
 
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