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Aldridge Road .

The old dog track entrance ...
oldMohawk said:
A photo of some waste ground and advertisment hoardings on the other side of the Walsall Rd from Christ Church where I waited in very large bus queues during the 1950's when I first started work. The entrance to the old Perry Barr Dog Track can be seen and what looks like a bus shelter which stretched all the way to the track and presumably kept the the punters out of any rain as they queued to get in. The actual track and grandstands were a long way from the road as can be seen in the aerial view in #18.
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Jack Allen was the name of the garage in the early 1970's....they repaired Dennis dustbin lorries, they had to move because of the Uni being built.....I do think the view is of Aldridge Road.....
 
For those who don't know about the history of Alexander Stadium, there have been two stadiums. The original was the one we're discussing on Aldridge Road. This first one (now the dog track) was the home of Birchfield Harriers from 1929- 1977. The famous club logo carved in 1929 by William Bloye can still be seen on the stadium wall facing Wellhead Lane. (A personal favourite of mine).




And as I thought, it's second later home is near Perry Barr Park, built especially for the Harriers club in the 1970s and called Birmingham Alexander Stadium. The hazy memory I have of this was my dad talking about it as he worked along Wellhead Lane up until that time.

Viv.



 
I went regularly to the speedway when it first opened after the war, the guy who ran it lived in the first big house in the row shown on the map, opposite the stadium going towards Kingstanding.
 
Very interesting maps, Mike. The 'metal works' at the northern junction of Wellhead Lane and Aldridge Road became the Land Rover Axle Works in I believe the early 1950's. My dad, who worked for Efco Ltd at the time, installed heat-treatment furnaces there, and liked working there as he could walk to and from the factory as we lived nearby in The Broadway.

Off-topic, but when the speedway moved to the site that is now One Stop, we used to sneak in through a tatty fence on Regina Drive. Nobody ever stopped us or even questioned us.

G
 
I watched Brooklyn Tech being built on the corner of Aldridge Road/Beeches Road. It opened in June 1954.
brooklyn_then.jpg

Today it has an additional block and is now named the James Watt College and the junction naturally has more street furniture.
Capture.JPG
 
Eric Gibson said:
I worked for four years at Brooklyn Garage opposite the college before I left Brum in 1965.
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When I bought my first car in the 1960s I used to fill up at Brooklyn Garage. It was not 'self service' as far as I remember. A photo below dated 1971.
brooklyngarage1971.jpg
 
This car dealer was on the corner of Wellhead Lane and Aldridge Road. I bought my first car, an Hillman Imp, from there when it was a 'Rootes' dealer.
JackAllen.JPG
 
I wonder how that area became known as Brooklyn? The Brooklyn - original Dutch name Breukelen - that most folk now of is in New York City. There is also the original Breukelen, near Utrecht in the Netherlands.
 
Brooklyn Garage wasn't self service when I was there, I don't know what happened after 1965, we all had a go at serving petrol when they were busy.
I remember the Esso 'tiger tails' promotion, a shilling each for what was in essence just a bit of rag and we couldn't get enough of them to satisfy the demand, how daft!
 
In post#40 is a pic of Brooklyn Garage in 1971 and this up-to-date pic shows that it is still there ... just about ... but no petrol sales.
BrooklynGarageNow.jpg
 
phil the photo of the garage in 71 brings memories flooding back for me...my hubby who was a self employed mechanic took all of his customers cars there for MOT..very often i would tag along...

lyn
 
The building with the 'roofing specialists' sign was the garage workshop when I was there, it was damned cold in the winter, when the doors front and rear of a similar size were opened there was an icy blast straight through, the only heating was a waste oil burner in the back corner.

I used to do a lot of the MOTs, two of us, myself and Bernard Lee were qualified as testers right from the day the MOT started.

They built a new workshop round the back later on.

The Printing business was started by John Maybury's daughter and her husband Nigel Bailey also some time after I left.
 
Over the years I've noticed a few garages that we're obviously originally domestic premises. Wonder why that is ? Some were originally farms (maybe the Jack Allen one in post #42 ?) but Brooklyn garage looks like it was originally one or two large family homes. Were there (legally) exemptions for running a garage from a domestic property ? Viv.
 
The Brooklyn site was a farm belonging to the Maybury family from way back before the garage was set up, John Maybury's sister owned a large portion of the old farmland, she sold off the piece on the opposite next corner to the First National Housing Trust on condition that it was used for housing and no motor trade use.

FNHT sold it to Gulf Petroleum who built a new petrol station there, Maybury tried to get it stopped but the lawyers told him that Gulf had enough money to drive him to bankruptcy with legal fees if he took it to court.
 
Brooklyn Farm marked on this 1947 aerial view. Aldridge Rd enters the pic top left corner going across to centre right and then meandering across the centre to leave the pic bottom left. The Drakes Drum pub, a Co-Op shop, sandhills, and an ash tip, are in the pic, but the Brooklyn Garage appears to have not yet been built.
BrooklynFarm1947.jpg
image from 'britainfromabove'
 
Eric Gibson said:
The Brooklyn site was a farm belonging to the Maybury family from way back before the garage was set up, John Maybury's sister owned a large portion of the old farmland, she sold off the piece on the opposite next corner to the First National Housing Trust on condition that it was used for housing and no motor trade use.

FNHT sold it to Gulf Petroleum who built a new petrol station there, Maybury tried to get it stopped but the lawyers told him that Gulf had enough money to drive him to bankruptcy with legal fees if he took it to court.
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That's disgraceful of the Housing Trust. I expect weight was given to the petrol station going ahead on the basis of its proximity to the motorway. Viv.
 
They were building the workshop when I was about sixteen (1951 maybe) I applied for a job there but they had no vacancies at the time, it was years later when I called in for spares for a car I was working on at home that John Maybury offered me a job because one of his mechanics was going off to do his national service.
 
Astoness said:
phil the photo of the garage in 71 brings memories flooding back for me...my hubby who was a self employed mechanic took all of his customers cars there for MOT..very often i would tag along...

lyn
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Hi Lyn, I seem to have many memories of Aldridge Road ....

Aldridge Road school ... I remember trudging through 2ft of snow to get there in blizzards of 1947.
Drakes Drum pub ... even at a very young age we went there to beg chocolate and chewing gum off the American soldiers from the Pheasey Base.
The sandhills near Greenholm Rd ... played there all day, only went home for meals.
Perry Barr park, on one visit aged about seven, I trod on broken glass while paddling barefoot and seriously cut my foot. Limping home with blood pouring from my shoe a women stopped me, and from a first aid kit she had in her shopping bag expertly bandaged my foot.
Visits to Christmas pantomines at the bus garage just round the corner from Aldridge Rd in Wellhead Lane.
The Jack Allen garage where I bought my first car.
The Brooklyn Garage ... bought most of my petrol there in the 1960's ... Esso petrol and a 'tiger in my tank'.
The Birmingham Speedway ... got covered in cinders watching them as they went round the track.

Phil
 
Vivienne14 said:
Over the years I've noticed a few garages that we're obviously originally domestic premises. Wonder why that is ? Some were originally farms (maybe the Jack Allen one in post #42 ?) but Brooklyn garage looks like it was originally one or two large family homes. Were there (legally) exemptions for running a garage from a domestic property ? Viv.
Click to expand...
There were five garages/petrol stations within two miles of where I lived.
Brooklyn Garage Aldridge Rd
Gulf Garage Aldridge Rd/Beeches Rd
Cottage Stores Garage Beeches Rd
Mobile Garage Aldridge Rd near Queslett Rd
Greenholm Road Garage.
Then the supermarkets took over ....
I notice we have an old thread
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/garages-and-service-stations.39446/
 
A queue of buses from the Wellhead Lane garage waiting to turn on to the Aldridge Road in 1974.
Birchfield_Harriers1974.jpg
 
Birmingham never did have a large fleet of single deck buses. The ones shown above are in West Midlands PTE livery. These type of buses ran on a new route 4 to Pool Farm and the PTE used them on some Limited Stop services on the Bristol Road and to Kingstanding. They and similar buses were also used on the 101 City shopper type service. Birmingham was lucky in so far that it never was subjected to the 'bread van' type of bus that found favour in some places.
 
Two images from the Library of Birmingham Archives site showing the junction with Wellhead Lane. There was once a farm at the junction with Aldridge Road. There are hoardings to the left on the second photo. Think this might have been due to the construction of the first Alexander Stadium which opened in 1929 (ie that shown in image #48).

The site has many Aldidge Road images - well worth a look. https://www.search.birminghamimages.org.uk/search.aspx?&PageIndex=2&SearchType=2&ThemeID=38

Viv.

image.jpeg image.jpeg
 
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