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Bull Street

Yes Shortie, thats about the duration of the steam trams, give or take. The buildings; well I suppose everything wears out eventually...especially so if little maintenance is given. Materials and labour costs req'd to build and extra height to give more for a given area are all features though, of modern buildings. The thing is that the buildings have become impersonal which is what we don't like. Some are downright ugly.
 
Well maintenance doe shave a hight cost I agree, but so does rebuild. The Newbury's building is still there under the Paladian cladding, and so is Berlin House. I don't find the building particularly ugly, but I hae to say that most modern buildings I find completely awful. Bit of a dinosaur, me - perfer the old to the new.
 
Thanks for pinpointing the sunday school Rupert. Looks much bigger than I thought.

Wonder if the cupola's on top of the Newbury building and the one across the road were anything other than decorative. A lovely feature, but sadly all now gone.

This photo (which I think was about 1950s?) has been posted elsewhere. It's the junction of Bull and Corporation Streets. Been trying to decide if it's a later view of the photo in post # 196? But can't quite match up the buildings. If it s the same position, the frontages seem to have been changed. Modernisation perhaps or re-builds? Rupert suggested that the buildings on the corner in the earlier photo probably had signs on them for demolition. So maybe they were replaced. I'm posting the earlier photo alongside for comparison. Viv.

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Those photo's are not of the same location Viv. The later one is about 55/60 ish, going by the Ford Thames 5 cwt. van and is looking south east on Bull St. from the Minories/Temple Row. Dale End in the distance. The older 1890 ish photo is the same as the previous one posted before but shows a bit more of the Lewis's corner (right of the photo)...no building there yet.
As for the buildings on the corner; just looking down towards the Bull Street/Corporation St., junction in the later photo; could be they are still there and the notices I mentioned earlier were about something else. I think I can determine the two peaks of the second building in but the angle is very shallow.
 
You are right Rupert. The curved building in the middle right hand side of the later photo (#220) at the junction with Temple Row is the original Rackhams. I remember buying a lovely coat from there in the late 50's. The photo looks down to Corporation Street and further to Dale End.

Judy
 
Spotted this in Showell's Dictionary. Anyone know where this would have been off Bull Street? An interesting name, maybe it refers to the shape of the yard perhaps? Viv.

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I think the yard must be the one in blue. I leave you to say if it looks like a hollow tooth

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Thanks Mike, looks like it would have been around the back of Grey's store then. The passage leading to the alley probably didn't survive later development as I don't remember an alleyway along there. And it looks like a pretty fat tooth! Alternatively it might have been a yard where you could get teeth removed - painfully. Viv
 
Viv
The 1866 map seems to show open space over the whole of that side of that part of Bull st, presumably as part of the building of the tunnel to Snow Hill, though it is still there in 1839

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Right, thanks Mike. Some of the Yard must be beneath the GW Arcade then. Still don't really see why it was called Hollow Tooth. Also it was once known as Devil's Hollow Tooth too. Viv.
 
Hi Viv: I missed this thread in April last year since I was away on holiday but in catching up I was doing some research on MacFisheries shops that sold Wet Fish.
I imagined that there was a shop in Dale End but not so it was as you note in Bull Street. Here is a close up photo of MacFisheries. They only had three shops in Birmingham according to their web site.
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Hi Jenny. Great photo. Those thick, sloping, marble slabs are a thing of the past. It's interesting that there was a MacFisheries in Bull Street, as just a little further down on the same side was Simpson's the fishmongers. Very close to each other. Such a shame these fishmonger's have gone. All overtaken by supermarkets. But fish in supermarkets isn't generally as good or as fresh. Viv.
 
In the middle to late 1850s my Gt Gt Grandfather was a fishmonger whose premises were directly behind Simpsons,It was in a yard that was entered from Dale End,alongside The Star public house.There were four other fishmongers in the same yard.This leads me to believe this area must have been the Birmingham Fish market before it moved to The Bull Ring.Moss
 

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Interesting Moss. Assume you mean the Fish Market next to the Bull Ring Market Hall? Viv.
 
Hi Viv:It was always amazing to see all the different types of fish laid out on those slabs in the Mac Fisheries shops. If you went by late in the day when they were preparing to close you could witness the assistants cleaning up using hose pipes and scrubbing brushes. The water ran out into the street and people tried to avoid stepping in it.
Mac Fisheries eventually got out of the Wet Fish business and into Supermarkets. There was one in Solihull on the High Street. This is a web site run by a man who has researched the company. Their logo is one I always remembered. https://www.macfisheries.co.uk/userimages/forum.htm
 
Hi Jenny. Great photo. Those thick, sloping, marble slabs are a thing of the past. It's interesting that there was a MacFisheries in Bull Street, as just a little further down on the same side was Simpson's the fishmongers. Very close to each other. Such a shame these fishmonger's have gone. All overtaken by supermarkets. But fish in supermarkets isn't generally as good or as fresh. Viv.

and here courtesy of GettyImages is Macfisheries Bull Street early 1960s

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Anyone have any ideas as to where this was on/off Bull Street? It's from the Shoothill collection and is labelled "The Old Coach Yard, Bull Street". It wouldn't by any chance be the Devils Hollow Tooth Yard talked about from post #224 would it? Or was it somewhere else on Bull Street? If it was a coach yard, would it have been near a pub/ inn/tavern? Viv.

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