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Hollyfields Recreation Ground

ChrisM

ChrisM

Super Moderator
Staff member
I believe this image was taken in Erdington, in what appears to be a playing field. Can anyone recognise the location, please?

Thanks.

(Group of Erdington Home Guard blokes practising with a spigot mortar, 1942-44).

BlackerGroupw700.jpg
 
IMG_1837.jpg

Perhaps the location can be found by process of elimination? As it looks to be by a football pitch one idea could be around Goosemoor Lane, here is a section of the 1938 map...
 
Thanks, Smudger and Pedrocut. I think the answer will be based on the appearance of the adjacent houses. This, below, is the best shot of those I can extract from the original image. Do they look right for either location?

Frothie - I have other images of Erdington blokes (possibly some of the same ones) training at Hockley Heath on this and another fearsome artillery weapon, the two-pounder gun: here.

Chris

BlackerGroupcropw1000.jpg
 
Pedrocut, the area between the park and Goosemoor Lane was allotments in 1938 except for the small part and it doesn't look familiar but it may have looked different earlier. There appears to be a tall building in the middle of the shot, which you can see more clearly in the middle of the second picture. I wonder if that can give us a clue.
 
ChrisM said:
Thanks, Smudger and Pedrocut. I think the answer will be based on the appearance of the adjacent houses. This, below, is the best shot of those I can extract from the original image. Do they look right for either location?

Frothie - I have other images of Erdington blokes (possibly some of the same ones) training at Hockley Heath on this and another fearsome artillery weapon, the two-pounder gun: here.

Chris

View attachment 114836
Click to expand...

Do we know what regiment of they were in? Would it be Erdington or part of a larger unit, for example Handsworth?
 
Just remembered that Short Heath park had lime trees around the perimeter. I don't know when they were planted but they we much closer together than those in the picture.
 
Pedrocut, your map - post #675 sorts out a few things for me. I remember going to a sports day / fete on the cricket ground in the early 1950's and we went in the entrance shown. Was that Aston Unity cricket ground before they moved to Tamworth I think it was. Where the gravel pit is shown is now part of Travis Perkins and the football field on the right is now a modern estate. Next door to that was the garage where we bought our Pink Parafin. Was it Aladdin? It wasn't an Esso Blee Dooler I know that although I can see the little man who advertised it.
 
Lady Penelope said:
Pedrocut, your map - post #675 sorts out a few things for me. I remember going to a sports day / fete on the cricket ground in the early 1950's and we went in the entrance shown. Was that Aston Unity cricket ground before they moved to Tamworth I think it was. Where the gravel pit is shown is now part of Travis Perkins and the football field on the right is now a modern estate. Next door to that was the garage where we bought our Pink Parafin. Was it Aladdin? It wasn't an Esso Blee Dooler I know that although I can see the little man who advertised it.
Click to expand...
Lady Penelope said:
Pedrocut, your map - post #675 sorts out a few things for me. I remember going to a sports day / fete on the cricket ground in the early 1950's and we went in the entrance shown. Was that Aston Unity cricket ground before they moved to Tamworth I think it was. Where the gravel pit is shown is now part of Travis Perkins and the football field on the right is now a modern estate. Next door to that was the garage where we bought our Pink Parafin. Was it Aladdin? It wasn't an Esso Blee Dooler I know that although I can see the little man who advertised it.
Click to expand...
Lady Penelope
I don't think Aston Unit's ground ran that far up. The entrance was not far beyond the terrace of houses after the Greyhound. Interestingly enough the last but one house on Court Lane before Goosemoor Lane was were the Hastilows lived, he owned Tudor Rose coaches and I remember from a visit as a 12/13 yr old schoolboy they had a very big rear garden. By the way thanks for reminding me about the paraffin man, now jog my memory again was there not a wood yard/timber merchant further down Goosemore?

Bob
 
Bob, I remember the sign at the entrance to AU's ground on Court Lane at the side of the cottages but the memory of going in from Goosemoor Lane is very clear. On Pedrocut's map there are two houses with what look like long gardens and the cricket ground is behind them running along the back of the two large, detached houses. I will pop along some time this week and see what I can figure out.
 
I'm looking at a house in Grange Rd Erdington, notice the black and white timber and the position of the two windows and the roof shape. The semi-detatched on the left of the modern pic was not there in 1945, it was just a rough field. The houses (out of view) on the opposite side of the road look interesting. I need to do more checks.
Nowthen.jpg
 
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ChrisM said:
I believe this image was taken in Erdington, in what appears to be a playing field. Can anyone recognise the location, please?
Thanks.
(Group of Erdington Home Guard blokes practising with a spigot mortar, 1942-44).
View attachment 114830
Click to expand...
Hi Chris, I think the photo was taken in one of the fields shown in the photo below which are on Grange Rd Erdington coming in from centre right of the photo. What do you think ?
oldmohawk
GrangeRdErdington.JPG
[EPW053143] The Holly Lane Brick Works and the surrounding residential area, Erdington, 1937
https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW053143
The view below shows Grange Road today, note the four semi-detached (pairs) houses built since the 1940s
20170603_121732000_iOS.jpg
 
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Bob, the timber yard was about where the gravel pit is shown in Pedrocut's post #675.

Pedrocut, your post #686 - very interesting map. Lots of new housing but I wonder what those two squares are in Shortheath Park, the pitches were further over. I can see the park keepers hut in the bottom left hand corner, Parkie Mitchell we called him.
 
Lady Penelope said:
Bob, the timber yard was about where the gravel pit is shown in Pedrocut's post #675.

Pedrocut, your post #686 - very interesting map. Lots of new housing but I wonder what those two squares are in Shortheath Park, the pitches were further over. I can see the park keepers hut in the bottom left hand corner, Parkie Mitchell we called him.
Click to expand...

The square was the bowing green, it had a big hedge around it when I was a kid. It would have been right by where you lived Lady P
 
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Pedrocut said:
Do we know what regiment of they were in? Would it be Erdington or part of a larger unit, for example Handsworth?
Click to expand...

It was the 23rd Warwickshire (Birmingham) Battalion, Pedrocut, which had responsibility for Erdington, or perhaps parts of Erdington. More information on it and one of its members, together with a number of group images and names, here.

I'm very grateful for all the interest in this little conundrum and, yes, oldMohawk, I am pretty sure you have cracked it!! I'll comment further shortly.

Chris
 
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Back to Grange Road, for a moment.

Yes, oldMohawk, I am sure you are right and thanks so much for making the identification. And thanks to everyone else for your interest in this query.

There's a further little twist to all this. A 1945 aerial view of the area, shown below, indicates a row of mysterious structures on the grass where the Home Guard had been deploying their mortar two or three years earlier. The first thoughts are perhaps army huts, or even tents. But the likelihood seems to be a row of prefabs which must have appeared very quickly after the war. How long did they last? A decade or so? Does anyone remember them? But then, after their removal, the area of grass was apparently reinstated and reincorporated into the sports field.

Unusual for an area of ground in Birmingham to have reverted to its wartime state and original use, and to have stayed that way up until the present day - rather than having been permanently built-upon like many other sites.

Chris

GrangeRoad1945cropw700.jpg View attachment 114869
 
In the second photo of the men there's some formal planting to the left of the first person and a sign between the second and third. At that point I expect there was a walkway into the park - so a pathway running behind the men. The sign probably announced 'no litter' in park or similar.

Doesn't look to me like Short Heath Park - houses look more Sutton or Handsworth area to me. Viv.
 
Hi Viv, if it is the men in #676 you are referring to, the actual place is shown in #687 - #688. Grange Rd Erdington.
Phil
 
Thanks Morturn, Of course it was! I think it was the two squares that put me off. Any ideas what the oblong one is? Maybe it's a flower bed as it's curved on the one side.
 
The name Short Heath made me wonder, within the present day Birmingham boundaries, the suffix Heath might be the most common of district names.
However it is beaten by the Greens: I find twenty of them, whereas the Heaths tie with the Hills both at nine.
Of course others may know differently.;)
 
ChrisM said:
Back to Grange Road, for a moment.

There's a further little twist to all this. A 1945 aerial view of the area, shown below, indicates a row of mysterious structures on the grass where the Home Guard had been deploying their mortar two or three years earlier. The first thoughts are perhaps army huts, or even tents. But the likelihood seems to be a row of prefabs which must have appeared very quickly after the war. How long did they last? A decade or so? Does anyone remember them? But then, after their removal, the area of grass was apparently reinstated and reincorporated into the sports field.

Unusual for an area of ground in Birmingham to have reverted to its wartime state and original use, and to have stayed that way up until the present day - rather than having been permanently built-upon like many other sites.

Chris

View attachment 114870 View attachment 114869
Click to expand...


I have this very vague memory that there were prefabs there. Of course, there were prefabs everywhere in Birmingham after the war, so it’s easy to modify your memories of the past, but am around 90% certain. The land was the HP sauce recreation ground.


Prefabs originally had about a 10-year life expectancy, but most were still here 30 years later. I do know that prefabs built on Parks had to give the land back to the parks if demolished. Hence the reason that the park land prefabs were last to go.
 
Pushing my luck on backgrounds again.....

From the same series of images, another group of Erdington blokes of 1940-44 but where? It looks like a very grand sports pavilion or golf club building. Could it even tie in with the recent comment (thanks, Morturn) that the area in Grange Road we have been discussing was the HP Sauce recreation ground?

Chris

CompanyGroupw1000.jpg
 
Sometimes when you look at a picture, without knowing any info, it looks familiar. My first thought was the playing field at what I believe was Hollyfields and the club was like a Cricket Pavillion.
 
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