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Zig Zag Bridge Packhorse Bridge Aldridge Road

N

neachelite

Guest
hiya folks,am trying to find out more about the zig zag bridge perry barr,i know it was built in 1709,but am trying to locate where the origional bridge was ,(wooden) and as to when that one was built,thanking in advance of any information.
 
Is this the one?. I'm not too sure. Jean.
Lost photo replaced

zig zag bridge perry barr.jpg
 
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hi..i think its more or less opposite the new wickes store on the aldridge road...there is a plaque on the wall explaining all but i have never stopped to read it....must have a look next time i go past....

astoness:):)
 
The photo I put on is opposite the new Wick's store. My mom told me that when they lived in Franchise street as children they used to cross the zig zag bridge for a dare. Jean.
 
hi jean..i thought that was the one....like i said i keep meaning to read the plaque...next time i pass i will take a pic of it..unless someone beats me to it....

lyn:)
 
Today I was able to have a good look at the old bridge over the Tame on the Aldridge Rd but I have been unable to find any info about it other than there is a preservation order on both the bridge and the wall leading up to it. Can any of you give me any information about it. I was able to have a good look at the Iron support rods running through the bridge and the simple escutcheons capping them. I also had a good look under the arches. Facinating to see. I'm sure there must be some interesting history to the bridge.
 
Chocks have you got the right place do you mean the one at Hampstead Village.Sorry i may be assuming someething here you mean the one by the New Wicks D.I.Y. store. Dek
 
Old mohawk i remember the factory it belonged to GKN as an electrician i was involved in the wiring installation when the office block to the right was first built in the 60s and the refurbishment in the late 70s . I think it was called Birthfield Metals. Dek
 
Hi Dek,
The factory was called Birfield Extrusions. If you worked on that office block I might have seen you because I worked in the office behind it and watched it being built. In the '90s a film mentioned in the Barton Arms thread had a few scenes in the factory and I snatched a few pics fron the film and posted them here
https://forum.birminghamhistory.co.uk/showthread.php?t=27306&p=265145#post265145
The factory had pits under the presses 20' deep' x 20' wide and 100' long. We had to pump 600 gallons an hour away from the low lying site to keep them dry. One Xmas the pumps failed and the pits were full to the brim when we returned - I remember seeing flourescent lights shining bright under 10' of water. It took 2 days to empty the water into the River Tame and it cleaned it up a bit.
oldmohawk:)
 
We always referred to the old Aldridge Road bridge as The Zig Zag Bridge. Local legend had it that a bridge has been there since Roamn times, but I'd have said that the old bridge you can see today is mediaeval. On a personal note, in the early 1950's my Uncle Stanley Cowel was driving along the Aldridge Road on his way home from work when he had a heart-attack and his van ended up in the river near the Zig Zag bridge. He had a passenger who was badly injured.

On another personal note, Birfield Extrusions was yet another Brum metal-bashing factory in which my dad installed a heat-treatment furnace when he worked for Efco Ltd.

Big Gee
 
The steel 'metal bashing' (forging) at BEX as we called it was quite technical because it was carried out at room temperature. The process was started under licence in 1960 from a German company called Neumeyer, who developed cold extrusion of steel during WW2 to make steel shell cases because they were short of copper/brass etc. We needed the furnaces for annealing and during the 1970's 3 day week, got a dispensation from the 'rota' power cuts because we said we could not easily switch off the furnaces. I think some of the local residents benefited from this...... Sorry about the thread drift. :rolleyes:
Just to get back to the River Tame and bridges, I remember seeing the road in front of the factory completely flooded before they sorted out the river.
oldmohawk:)
 
Oldmohawk on a personal note quite ironic discussing a GKN site today i went to Winterbourne house on Edgbaston Park Rd the home of Mr Nettlefold built in1908. Dek
 
Hello Dek,
I worked for Birfield Industries and when GKN took over they were after the 'constant velocity joint' produced by Hardy Spicer. They already had a similar forging plant in South Wales and assumed they would not need the Hamstead plant. When their experts came they were amazed how technically advanced the 'Brum' plant was and we easily fought them off and eventually closed their South Wales plant for them.
oldmohawk
 
Oldmohawk i also did work at Hardy Spicers, Salisbury Transmission in fact most of GKN . Did you know Hardies is now just a hole in the ground the office are still there but have been sold off. Dek
 
Hi Dek,
I didn't know they had closed the Hardy Spicer factory. I haven't been that way for a long time, but used to visit HS almost weekly for years. A lot of 'real characters' worked there. I posted some group photos back in 2008, GKN staff pretending to be University students for 3 weeks...the photos are here
https://forum.birminghamhistory.co.uk/showthread.php?t=19580&p=152393#post152393
Some of the photos shows the River Cam and a bridge, so I'm just about clinging to the 'bridge topic' of this thread.:D
oldmohawk
 
Was Salisbury Transmition in Wyrely Road in Witton?I took a peep at your link to your visit to Magdalene College,OM. Our daughter owns a house close by so I know the College well. Did you go into the library, your photo was taken outside. Samuel Pepys diaries are in there he left the legacy in his will. They are in the original cabinets he had made for them. ( I love his dairies)Sorry off topic, the bridge is lovely and not many get to see it. We did only because Sally's boyfriend at the time was a Don at Magdalene.
 
I remember the bridge on Old Walsall Road very well I turned my Reliant three wheeler car over on it one morning in the 60s There was a bit of black ice on the road, my car spun round, hit the kerb tipped over and smashed in the hood. I climbed out got my mate out put the car back on its wheels. We were 5 minutes late for work that morning Moss in Aus
 
Di.Poppitt said:
Was Salisbury Transmition in Wyrely Road in Witton?
Click to expand...
Hello Di,
Salisbury Transmissions was in Birch Rd but at the junction with Wyrley Rd. We did have 2 hours in the Pepys Library and it was very interesting. I also read his diaries about once every two years, they are so descriptive and make you almost feel as if you are back in the 17th Century. My study room in the photo looked out onto the river, but my bedroom looked out on to the grass square in front of the Library. I was lucky to be accommodated in the old part of the College, others on the course, were in a modern block.
Phil
oldmohawk
 
Hi Moss,
If your Reliant crash happened on the old bridge in the '60's, I must have watched the new bridge being built from our office. I've been trying to think when the modern bridge was built.
Phil
 
Salisbury Transmission also had a depot built i think late 60s-early 70s on the corner of OLd Bromford Lane this has since been demolished and is now a housing estate.


I,m trying also to recall when the new bridge was built on the Old Walsall Rd i think it was early 70s maybe 71-72 Dek
 
Oldmohawk thats jogged the memory i remember that the pedestrian underpass completely disappeared by Tuckers. Dek
 
The Thame flooded the road under the railway bridge in Witton in about '52/3. We kids heard about it and all went off to have a look, putting on our Wellies. Nothing could pass and the police gave us athe thumbs down when we wanted a paddle.

Which bridge in Hamstead is new? I know the canal bridge, I was born almost under it, and the railway road bridge near the Beaufort but I can't think of another.

(Phil, you must have enjoyed being at Magdalene, it's almost like stepping back into a different world behind some of the college doors. Imagine a drinks party on a lovely summer evening, in the Master's garden.)
 
Di.Poppitt said:
Which bridge in Hamstead is new?
Click to expand...
Di - Here, (thanks to Google Street Cam) is the new bridge and old bridge to the right of it.
Phil

New_Bridge.JPG

Old_Hamstead_Rd_thread.JPG
 
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bbb.jpeg
This was a floodgate on the River Tame at Perry Mill Farm in 1897.
 
A photo from 1906 of the Aldridge Road/Zig Zag Bridge. Nice to see it's still there. The modern screenshot shows, I think, where the man is sitting on the wall in the 1906 photo (i.e. just behind the later bridge). Viv.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1335475577.279075.jpg ImageUploadedByTapatalk1335475602.417927.jpg
 
I agree Viv, I seem to recall a car crashing into it and causing damage within the last ten or fifteen years or so. Here's another picture for your delectation...

s-l1600.jpg
 
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