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Bull Street

Yes I think it is Lyn. But I think I've now confused myself about the old Dalton St. Not sure that it did replace Lower Priory reading Mike's earlier post with the map. Viv.


viv dont worry at first i thought the hotel was in bull st lol...just another senior moment..
 
I think this is roughly where the front of the hotel would have been. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong). So the coach yard of the pre1880s Stork Hotel would have run behind the hotel, parallel with today's Corporation Street (but not in existence at the time of the old Stork) and would probably have exited onto Bull Street. If so it must have been quite a large yard.

Understand Lyn I've had several senior moments today. Dalton Street's giving me a right old mental run-around! Viv.

ImageUploadedByTapatalkHD1422381617.776634.jpg
ImageUploadedByTapatalkHD1422381628.079980.jpg
 
Viv
I did this overlay some time ago.Not sure what it was for, but I think this answers the question, and confirms your picture

c_1912_map_bull_st__super_on_google_3.jpg


c_1912_map_bull_st__super_on_google_2.jpg
 
Going back to The Old Coach Yard Bull Street. I added this on Facebook

Bull Street was then the principal street in Birmingham for retail business, and it contained some very excellent shops. Most of the then existing names have disappeared, but a few remain. Mr. Suffield, to whose courtesy I am indebted for the loan of the rare print from which the frontispiece to this little book is copied, then occupied the premises near the bottom of the street, which he still retains. Mr. Adkins, the druggist, carried on the business established almost a century ago. He is now the oldest inhabitant of Bull Street, having been born in the house he still occupies before the commencement of the present century. Mr. Gargory—still hale, vigorous, and hearty, although rapidly approaching his eightieth year—then tenanted the shop next below Mr. Keirle, the fishmonger. His present shop and that of Mr. Harris, the dyer, occupy the site of the then Quakers' Meeting House, which was a long, barn-like building, standing lengthwise to the street, and not having a window on that side to break the dreary expanse of brickwork. Mr. Benson was in those days as celebrated for beef and civility as he is now. Mr. Page had just opened the shawl shop still carried on by his widow. Near the Coach Yard was the shop of Mr. Hudson, the bookseller, whose son still carries on the business established by his father in 1821. In 1837, Mr. Hudson, Sen., was the publisher of a very well conducted liberal paper called The Philanthropist. The paper only existed some four or five years. It deserved a better fate. Next door to Mr. Hudson's was the shop of the father of the present Messrs. Southall. All these places have been materially altered, but the wine and spirit stores of Mrs. Peters, at the corner of Temple Row, are to-day, I think, exactly what they were forty years ago. The Brothers Cadbury—a name now celebrated all over the world—were then, as will be seen by reference to the frontispiece, shopkeepers in Bull Street, the one as a silk mercer, the other as a tea dealer. The latter commenced in Crooked Lane the manufacture of cocoa, in which business the name is still eminent. The Borough Bank at that time occupied the premises nearly opposite Union Passage, which are now used by Messrs. Smith as a carpet shop. In all other respects—except where the houses near the bottom are set back, and the widening of Temple Row—the street is little altered, except that nearly every shop has been newly fronted.
 
Sorry Carolina, but the text as given here, to me, reads as if it is written today, which it obviously wasn't.
 
Thanks for the overlay map Mike.

Thanks to Carolina too. That confirms the Coach Yard must have exited onto Bull St. At that time (pre-1880s) Bull St would have been the main thoroughfare before Corporation Street was built, so it makes sense. Viv.
 
It looks like Hudsons quoted is at this address.

[SIZE=+2]HE OLDEST BOOK SHOP IN BIRMINGHAM.
[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+2]HUDSON & SON, 18, BULL STREET.
[/SIZE]
Established in 1821 by the late Benjamin Hudson.

DISCOUNT ON BOOKS:
THREEPENCE in the Shilling, for Cash.
TWOPENCE in the Shilling, when Entered, and Paid for
within a Month.
 
That is so interesting Carolina. My 4 x gt grandfather, James Stephens, was a Shoemaker with a shop at 34 Bull Street from at least 1815. So he wouldn't have been that far from Hudsons Book Shop. With the help of others on the Forum we calculated that No.34 would have been roughly where the Lewis's building stands at a point facing Temple Row.

Judy
 
Thanks Carolina. I have seen this lovely drawing before and think it is just fascinating, and shows why Bull Street was the main shopping thoroughfare of its day. Unfortunately No.34 isn't shown on it!! However I do know that James Stephens had moved his business to 62 Constitution Hill by 1829 but it would be great to find out more about his shop in Bull Street.

Judy
 
Bull Street looking towards Snow Hill in 1939. I never saw the buildings on the extreme edges of the photo left and right. There's an advert for Rackhams on the chimney stack (left) when the shop was on the corner of Bull St/ Corporation Street. Viv.
 

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Vivienne

At this time Rackhams was on the corner of Bull St and Temple Row and wasn't quite the size it became when they took over the whole corner. The building on the extreme right was Harrisons Corner (opticians) on the corner of Snow Hill and Steelhouse Lane.
 

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Thanks Phil. I assume the buildings had to go to make way for the new road system and pedestrian underpasses. Viv.
 
Well Vivienne

I can understand Rackham's wanting nice new larger premises but why Harrson's had to go so they could put a hole in the ground I will never understand, I've never quite worked out what is was or why it was there as as far as I could see it served no useful purpose.
 

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Viv, in your postcard (post 258) you can see at the far end the rounded building which became known as Harrison's Corner seen close-up in photo 2 of post 259.
 
This is the old coach yard at the back of Bull Street (from the Shoothill site). Any ideas where exactly this was? Viv.

image.jpeg
 
Viv

This very image, with the same question was asked on the forum a short while back, I think it was Mike that answered it then with a map. I'll leave him to point to his post, because I can't quite remember where the post was made.
 
Other versions of this photo name it as the Old Coach Yard of Bull St. On 1839 and 1828 maps the alley at the back of the Stork Hotel is named Coach Yard. this is off bull St, so assume that this is the same
 

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This is a photo on Getty looking down the lower half of Bull Street (between Corporation Street and the News Theatre at the High Street junction).

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/license/3364698

Is the first street on the left the old Coach yard widened by the the time of this 1962 shot? Corporation Street ran straight past the Stork Hotel and therefore this passage would lead straight to it.
 
Richie.
I think it will approximate to an extension of what was Old Coach Yard ( but by the time of the photo it is Dalton St), though, on the c1839 map there seems to be no entrance at all onto Bull st.
 
Mike

Could it be a built over entrance, similar to that shown on the photo?
 
Yes Phil it could now you mention it. the early maps gave no indication of that sort of thing, so it possibly could
 
Rackhams on Bull Street - the early shop on the corner with Windsor Arcade. Is there a map showing 'Windsor Arcade' or has it usually been referred to as NW Arcade? Love the Edwardian ladies clothes displayed in their windows. Viv.

image.jpeg
 
The North West Arcade goes from Temple Row down to Corporation Street.

A recent Bull Street photo with a pair of Midland Metro trams.

 
thanks ell...just my opinion of course but yet another souless image..the city centre just seems to be losing all its character

lyn
 
The other side, (well half of it anyway) is being done up as "The Lewis Building" (where Lewis's used to be).

All the trees lining the route of the tramway extension were removed and not replaced.
 
shame about the trees ell...they added a bit of colour...i guess thats progress for you

lyn
 
I was up there some months ago trying to find my way around and was curios about the trams
asking a couple of people which stop is it back down to new street
it seemed every one i aked had no idea which stop was going where, i met an old couple whom like me had never been back to the city
In years and we was both recalling the old town as we knew it and spoke of lewis garden on top with the big telescope
for an old penny input
i said i like the colour of the trams but not the thundering and creaking around we jumpped on and two stopps we was off it
and i said i feel it looks like a concrete jungle but i do like the idea of travelling to wolverhampton thou on it
best wishes Astonian,,,,
 
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