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Alma Street School

C

carole-fordy

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Ive been looking for pictures of Alma street school Lozells, or Clifford street from late 50's-60's, I lived and went to school round there, any pictures I had I lost and never backed up so if anyone can help It would be very much appreciated.( I have asked before but in the wrong place I think.)
 
Alma St School
 

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I believe it was built right in the middle of the drained downstream pond of the old Aston Furnace. This picture shows the incline of the hill which would have had a lower built up slag embankment to hold the water at an elevation above Hockley Brook. If you look at the map ref. below I believe you can see the upper aprox perimeter of the pond possibly a ridge or fence. The gardens of some of the older houses seem to end at it. I thought this may be of intrest. It's not proven just a research project.

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/m...d=10094&ox=1685&oy=330&zm=1&czm=1&x=348&y=361
 
Ragga, sorry, I was referring to Posties picture. I take it you can see the map. Your pictures are great. Is that Furnace Lane bending up to the right? What year would that have been?
 
Oh I see now Rupert , no worries ....... yes it is Furness Lane
during demolition , the top green gate on the images is the
back entrance to Alma Street School.
ragga :)
 
Alma St

:) Thank's Ragga, I think that the building at the top is E&J Leek or Levics it was also called. My mum was a packer there, it caught fire a couple of times. We lived opposite.
 
I'm sorry to be a nuisence, if I may ask a few more questions. If you look further up Furnace Lane, past the green gate to the school, you can see a higher perimeter wall leading around the school. Would that wall have been on top of a bank. Did your back garden end at the wall Carole. I am trying to plot what I think is the outline of a mill pond that was there and I think that was the upper bank of the pool. I notice that as you move to the left in those pictures the ground rises, so that the original pool, way back when, may have stretched across Furnace Lane a short distance. So that the last bit of Furnace Lane below Clifford may have been a later addition after the upper stream and ponds had been drained.
Just to the left of the mailbox would have been the old Aston Furnace in the early 1800s and the other side of it, its elongated mill pond. I am not sure what the second pool would have been used for but there are a few refferences. The picture taker would have been standing right over Hockley Brook now underground the pools would have been fed by a leat taken from Hockley Brook much further upstream. The run of the leat and subsequent tail races were so long that it may have been known by the different name of Aston Brook.
Regards.
 
Carole...There are some photos on the Friends Reunited site of Clifford Street
classes from the l960's. If you aren't a member please let me know.
 
Jennyann ..... I am registered with Friends-united,
where will I find these photos of Clifford Street ??
I cant see them under Alma Street.
ragga :)
 
Ragga's two pictures are really super - but it makes it harder for me to understand what was there before the 1850/60s. Previously I assumed that the 'wavy line' which bounds the back of the school, and then crosses Alma Street as a property boundary line to wobble on towards Aston High Street was the course of the mill race, while the original Hockley Brook was lower down, obviously at the lowest point in Alma Street/Summer Lane and at Aston High Street.
What baffles me is that those photos clearly show that the boundary line at the back of the school went uphill, which is something water never does, unless a deep cutting had been made for it (but that would not have been dug in such a wobbly line). Fowler's 1833 map of Aston appears to show the outlet from Furnace Pool flowing south back into Hockley Brook, and then another artificial mill race flowing in a straight eastwards to Aston High Street, which then flowed into the pool above the big Aston Flour Mill.
So it's all quite a mystery. Quite fascinating.
Peter
 
Hi again Ragga: Just hit the links in the above message and scroll down to
Browse. Hit Browse and then you will see a menu across the top just hit School Photo Albums and you will find the photos.
 
I would like to thank everyone for their input on this one, I have been looking for ages, but like I said " In the wrong place". the street ran between the factory and our house Ragga, the School was at the back of Levics, cos my mom used to be able to wave at us while we were in the playground. Looking at the pictures I think they were about 1969 because we were moved out in 67.
 
I seem to have invaded this thread with a sub-thread if you will. Well, it was Posties picture of the school and Raggas superbe shots of Furnace Lane, pictures that I have been waiting to see for a long time. If that was not enough there was someone who lived right there. The slope that seemed to match the old survey elevations came to life and would you believe it an old mail box making it's lonely last stand right where the ancient furnace stood all those years ago. If I am right, non of the buildings in the photo's would have been there in the furnaces heyday, except the one thing; the ridge below the northern wall of the playground. The location is just visible in Raggas photo's and is marked by the wall leading off to the right up the hill past the green gate to the school. The wall itself would not have been there way back but it marks the spot. The wall is also shown on the 1890 survey maps. In answer to Peters point about the terrain; I would say that it is exactly what was needed. No, water does not flow up hill; it did not have to. It was already up there. It was water from the old leat and long furnace pond that served Aston Furnace (probably not used there after the Newcomen Engine was installed) and led across the pictures to the school playground approx by spoil embankments and ditches to maintain as much of the elevation as possible. Once there it formed a pool using existing terrain and a lower spoil bank. How this pool would have been used is not known at this point. But there are refferences to it. Hockley Brook as stated was below ground under the feet of the photographer. It never drove anything as far as I can find but it did supply the water to the leat much further up-stream as we know from before. When the area was latterly developed and the leats and pools drained, the lower spoil banks would have been levelled but the ridge under the wall seems to have remained and I am suggesting that this marks the approx. outline of the northern bank of the second pool. I think that Raggas pictures may tell more of a story than intended. I believe that tailraces in the midlands would have often been very deep and long, and on the survey maps you find that most of them are guarded by fences to stop people from falling in and breaking their necks. This would have meant that the race could not have been fed back into Hockley Brook right there because it would have been lower than the Brook and the higher brook water level would have back-flooded the bottom of the water wheel. So the tailrace had to be taken further on, to be fed back into Hockley Brook when the lavels were compatible or in this case on down to Aston Brook Flour Mill pool, all the time trying not to loose any more head which would have meant keeping to compatible higher ground. If you look at some of the old maps, you can see that the length of Aston Brook Mill pool seems to vary. Sometimes it is stubby and sometimes longer. The reason for this may be that it was originally fed from the Furnace tail race but when the second furnace pool was in place it may have been fed from that greater head. This would have allowed Aston Brook Flour Mill pool to gain head by further banking up and the pool would then have stretched further up the hill. A larger diameter more powerfull water wheel could then have been used.
 
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Wonderful pictures Rupert, I often walked down Furnace lane and earlier in the last century my grandparents lived at the end of Porchester Sreet
 
A snippit of information: In 1940, a bombing raid destroyed the junior block at Gower Street School. The department was housed in the former Alma Street School until 1945 when it closed.
 
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