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Broadfields House Lindenhurst House

oldMohawk

oldMohawk

gone but not forgotten
A postcard type view towards the tram terminus on Sutton Road. Maybe the crowd boarding the bus have arrived by tram but would need the bus to travel on to Sutton. Looks like the boundary wall of Broadfields House on the right.
SuttonRdTramBusTerminus.jpg
 
Yes oM, Broadfields House was large but for some reason there is no picture of it. I've been to Sutton Library and they don't have one either. It must have been very imposing in it's heyday.
 
In reply to post 805: From the Peter Walker archives:
Fig 9 — TTA2 bus O 9938, dating from 1913 was given a new single deck front entrance body designed and patented by Wyndham Shire in 1918. It is seen here running on the Sutton route in 1919. (No picture is available in the thread)
Thirty-three more buses were obtained during 1919, all Tilling Stevens TS3 single deckers, one of which was the first motor char-a-banc, with bench seating extending the width of the bus, and doors on the near side only, with double running boards. This layout was to become popular for 15 years or so, provided the weather was good.
My post:
Bus O 9938 was new around 1913. Dates available are a little vague, but then it is a while ago :). It was a Tilling Stevens TTA2 which seated 27 and when built was owned by the District Power & Traction Co. Ltd. but never ran for them being leased to the B&MMO (Midland Red) passing to the Red around 1917. It had a rear passenger entrance.
The photo in post 805 does not show the roof luggage rack which I guess was fitted later for the parcels service that was operated. A photo of similar bus O 9940 at Bewdley did not have a luggage rack.
Around 1919 the bus was rebuilt into a double deck with 18 seats upper deck and 16 in the saloon. It was re-registered O 7100.
 
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A view dated c1907 of a fine looking house on the Birmingham Road Sutton situated between Holifast Rd and Harman Road. It was known as Lindenhurst and although it has not previously been mentioned in this thread it was mentioned in another thread here https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/for...erdington-tramway-terminus.47732/#post-591921
The people living there would have been surprised about what eventually happened to the house.
holifastHarman.JPG

Houses change over time but in this Google streetview the upper part of the house looks just as it did in the earlier photo. The grey doors lead to a 'Hair Clinic' although if the streetview is moved slightly it changes to a black door and the 'Hair Clinic' sign disappears ....
HolifastNow.JPG
https://goo.gl/maps/jYd9iB5kwGn

An aerial view is interesting ... the single storey shops appear to have been built around Lindenhurst and the door on Birmingham Rd leads via an open passage to where the original house door was ....
Lindenhurst_iOS.jpg
 
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I was looking at a map showing Broadfields (house) and noticed Lindenhurst (house) almost opposite and Broadfields has been mentioned several times in this Erdington Thread and Lindenhurst mentioned in the Erdington Tramway Terminus thread so got stuck with Erdington on my mind ... I have edited my post.
 
The aerial view looks almost surreal , as if it had been composed on a computer !
 
mikejee said:
The aerial view looks almost surreal , as if it had been composed on a computer !
Click to expand...
The 3D effects in Google and Apple aerial views are mostly computer generated and start to break up with close zooms. I used Apple because it is easier for me. I would think a photo from a drone over the area would look much the same but without computer artifacts. I'm just intrigued in how they built the shops around the building ... probably not many similar builds like it in Birmingham and districts. The walls of the original building must still be there to support the upper storey ...:)
 
oM, the boundary between Sutton and Erdington is a complete nightmare so I can understand the confusion. It changes with every map and as I've said before it wiggles about especially in the above area. We have a signpost halfway up our road but now the boundary goes into the next road. Very strange and I don't think the planners know exactly where it is!
 
It just seems strange that an edwardian building sticks up out of a group of shops. Perhaps someone bought the site to build some shops and could not get permission to demolish the house so they simply built around it. Looking at old maps the shops and a bank appeared maybe in the 1930s.
As mentioned elsewhere on the forum, Lindenhurst is still standing after all these years but in an unusual way !
 
oldMohawk said:
It just seems strange that an edwardian building sticks up out of a group of shops. Perhaps someone bought the site to build some shops and could not get permission to demolish the house so they simply built around it. Looking at old maps the shops and a bank appeared maybe in the 1930s.
As mentioned elsewhere on the forum, Lindenhurst is still standing after all these years but in an unusual way !
Click to expand...

well phil i dont think i have ever seen anything like this....looks like access to the house is round the back...would not mind getting a closer look...what a shame they had to hide the front of the house from being seen from the main road...crazy idea

lyn
 
Hi Lyn, looking at the aerial view there appears to be an open passageway from a door on the street to the front door of the house and a large garden area behind the house. I suppose we can say an old building has half survived ...
Phil
 
The lower walls must be intact but maybe windows bricked up behind walls in the shops etc ... all very strange ...
 
It does look odd - but then it is Sutton....
Not sure what's happening now but I believe this was Lloyds Bank until quite recently. Fairly sure that the door with the For Sale sign above was the entrance and all the counters, offices etc. were in Lindenhurst. I'll check with my cousin who used to bank there. Maybe they have transferred banking to Sutton as have NatWest, who used to be in the shopping centre, and the Midland who were on the corner of Broadfields Road where Verdo is now. Centralising I think it's called but inconvenient I call it. Wonder what the notice says?
 
I suppose because the house was set back from the frontage of the other shops they could not carry out the usual method of simply installing a shop and shop front underneath an old building as elsewhere, and did it as it is with the passage from the street.
 
oM, It would be interesting to see what was there in past times.

I'm sure there is a photo somewhere on the forum with a tram outside the parade of shops opposite the Co-op but I can't remember how far down the slip road it went. No further than the boundary that's for sure. Residents in Sutton didn't want those nasty trams coming through their town. Mind you, I seem to remember that the residents on Gravelly Hill North said exactly the same thing before the march of progress. There used to be a sign for 'Welcome to the Royal Town' by the tram terminus but although this has been re-instated I think it's a bit like Aston Cross and has moved.
 
Now, this may be better on the trams thread but further to the conversation with Frothblower I'm putting it here for the time being.
The following piece is by Roger Lea and appears on the Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group site. It's quite long but seems to solve the mystery of why the trams didn't continue into Sutton.

Wylde Green Shopping Centre used to be known as “The Yenton” or the “Tram Terminus”. The trams from Birmingham terminated there because that was the Sutton Coldfield boundary, and the body responsible for making the original tramline from Salford Bridge, Erdington Urban District Council, had no powers beyond its boundary. The tramline was opened in 1907.

Erdington had secured powers to build the tramway by Act of Parliament in 1902. In August 1902 Sutton Borough Council decided to apply to Parliament for powers to build tramways in the borough. Surveys were made, and a plan produced showing the proposed routes.

Tramway No. 1 was to run along the centre of Birmingham Road from the Erdington tram terminus to the Parade, and tramway no. 2 continued along Lichfield road to the Sutton boundary at Watford Gap. Tramway no. 3 ran along Jockey Road and Boldmere Road to link with a proposed Erdington tramway (not built) at Gravelly Lane, and the scheme included a fourth line along Chester Road from Gravelly Lane to the Yenton. Tramway no. 9 led down Victoria Road and Coleshill Road under the bridge to the Borough’s brand new Electricity Generating Station and the proposed tram depot. The trams would run on electricity from an overhead wire.

Parliamentary Committees considered the Sutton Tramway Bill in July 1903; it was opposed by the London and North Western Railway on the grounds that it would adversely affect their train service between Sutton and Birmingham. But when the House of Lords Committee rejected the tramway bill they “based their decision not on the alleged competition with the L.N.W.R., but on the grounds that the need for the tramways had not been proved to the satisfaction of the Committee.”

This was reported in the Daily Mail for July 14th 1903, but an editorial in the same newspaper the next day hints at the real reason: “One understands that the well-to-do resident who has a pleasant villa fronting on the main road and can afford a first-class season ticket objects to the trams, but the less fortunate have a right to be considered”, and their Sutton correspondent reported on the intense satisfaction felt among the inhabitants “who have been all along opposed to the trams”.

This whole charade had been sparked by rumours circulating in the Summer of 1902 that the British Electric Traction Company was about to apply for powers to construct tramways in Sutton. Trams would lower the tone of Sutton, so the devious Corporation succeeded in keeping Sutton tram-free by pretending to want to build their own network.
 
I expect many areas in the UK were deprived of a reliable and cheap tramway system: nimbyism s not a new thing. ;)
The Calthorpe controlled part of the city was against trams at one time.
Torquay was another place where the genteel folks had misgivings. As an appeasement the Dolter system, rather than overhead wiring was installed. The Dolter system relied on live electric plates set into the road surface as the positive with negative being returned through the tracks. The principal reason for its demise was that horses were getting killed due to electrocution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stud_contact_system
 
Lady Penelope said:
Now, this may be better on the trams thread but further to the conversation with Frothblower I'm putting it here for the time being.
The following piece is by Roger Lea and appears on the Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group site. It's quite long but seems to solve the mystery of why the trams didn't continue into Sutton.

Wylde Green Shopping Centre used to be known as “The Yenton” or the “Tram Terminus”. The trams from Birmingham terminated there because that was the Sutton Coldfield boundary, and the body responsible for making the original tramline from Salford Bridge, Erdington Urban District Council, had no powers beyond its boundary. The tramline was opened in 1907.

Erdington had secured powers to build the tramway by Act of Parliament in 1902. In August 1902 Sutton Borough Council decided to apply to Parliament for powers to build tramways in the borough. Surveys were made, and a plan produced showing the proposed routes.

Tramway No. 1 was to run along the centre of Birmingham Road from the Erdington tram terminus to the Parade, and tramway no. 2 continued along Lichfield road to the Sutton boundary at Watford Gap. Tramway no. 3 ran along Jockey Road and Boldmere Road to link with a proposed Erdington tramway (not built) at Gravelly Lane, and the scheme included a fourth line along Chester Road from Gravelly Lane to the Yenton. Tramway no. 9 led down Victoria Road and Coleshill Road under the bridge to the Borough’s brand new Electricity Generating Station and the proposed tram depot. The trams would run on electricity from an overhead wire.

Parliamentary Committees considered the Sutton Tramway Bill in July 1903; it was opposed by the London and North Western Railway on the grounds that it would adversely affect their train service between Sutton and Birmingham. But when the House of Lords Committee rejected the tramway bill they “based their decision not on the alleged competition with the L.N.W.R., but on the grounds that the need for the tramways had not been proved to the satisfaction of the Committee.”

This was reported in the Daily Mail for July 14th 1903, but an editorial in the same newspaper the next day hints at the real reason: “One understands that the well-to-do resident who has a pleasant villa fronting on the main road and can afford a first-class season ticket objects to the trams, but the less fortunate have a right to be considered”, and their Sutton correspondent reported on the intense satisfaction felt among the inhabitants “who have been all along opposed to the trams”.

This whole charade had been sparked by rumours circulating in the Summer of 1902 that the British Electric Traction Company was about to apply for powers to construct tramways in Sutton. Trams would lower the tone of Sutton, so the devious Corporation succeeded in keeping Sutton tram-free by pretending to want to build their own network.
Click to expand...
Lady P
Thanks for this article, always knew the terminus of the 2 tram, the 64 bus and S73 as the Yenton or the Tram Terminus and the last time I was up home, we left the car at Chester Road and went into town on the train, so efficient, but talking to my wife I said we could always come back on the bus to the Tram Terminus and an old lady sat behind us said 'I haven't heard The Yenton called that for years..........' and for the rest of the journey we had a superb reminisce and it turned out her father was a tram driver out of Witton and Miller Street, for quite a while the whole area around us was full of memories from the older people on the train and some interesting questions from youngsters. One point comes out from all of this and that is that how busy your buses and trains are and also how frequent they are. A bus journey up stairs is always a good way to look at the city, one way by train return by bus.
Bob
 
Bob,
We're lucky enough to live right by the station so we use the train quite a lot. I go into Sutton on the bus though and when I go to the library, in Erdington, I try to walk there and get the bus back. Both of our children live some distance away and every now and then we toy with the idea of moving but it's so convenient here that we put the idea on the back burner. We both drive but find it less stressful to be taken. Last night I was meeting some old school friends at the Horse & Jockey so I pottered up the hill and got the X5 - door to door in 20 minutes with a short wait for the bus. And I didn't have to find a parking space!
 
Going back to oldMohawk's post #823, there are an awful lot of trees behind Lindenhurst and I can't work out which property they belong to. Any ideas?
 
Thanks Peter, it looks as though they're in the Lindenhurst plot doesn't it? The original plot went a good third of the way down to Orphanage Road.
 
oldMohawk said:
I was looking at a map showing Broadfields (house) and noticed Lindenhurst (house) almost opposite and Broadfields has been mentioned several times in this Erdington Thread and Lindenhurst mentioned in the Erdington Tramway Terminus thread so got stuck with Erdington on my mind ... I have edited my post.
Click to expand...
Hi, my name is Deryk and I am currently working on a history of Wylde Green where this beautiful old house stood. Although parts of Wylde Green did have an Errdington address it was for admin only, Erdington ended at Chester Road and Wylde Green village took over. Kind regards Deryk
 
oldMohawk said:
I was looking at a map showing Broadfields (house) and noticed Lindenhurst (house) almost opposite and Broadfields has been mentioned several times in this Erdington Thread and Lindenhurst mentioned in the Erdington Tramway Terminus thread so got stuck with Erdington on my mind ... I have edited my post.
Click to expand...
Visited Lyndenhurst today as I was puzzled that I was unable to find any electoral records. I went round the back and could see that it was occupied as lights were on and the central heating was working. It is certainly in Sutton and it is an office block with entrance at number 473 to a number of different offices. The shops in front are very shallow and the original building appears to be intact.
 
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