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cato street

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dicky-yrrep

Brummie babby
My grandparents owned and ran the coal yard in cato street before ww2 can anyone recall memories of this street/area around. my father who was born in Cato St often spoke of the monkey house? which i think was situated under the 3 to 4 storey derelict factory which still stands to this day!! memories/photos would be great. I drove down Crawford Street yesterday, is this still a public road or a giant scrapyard? why do Birm Council allow this to go on?
 
dicky-yrrep The derelict building i believe you mean is in Cato St North it,s an old brewery. the Monkey House was nearer Duddeston Mill Rd on the corner of Somerset St.Phil 1947 is the man For photos of this area i,m sure he,ll help you i,m a novice with my computer.The company i work for is based roughly were Somerset St used to be. Dek
 
Hi Dicky

There are memories recorded and photos on here referring to Cato St & Cato St North just use the search facility and you will find them. Never having used the Monkey House I can't say where it was located for sure.

Some say it was located where you indicate in Cato St North (can anybody tell me the name of that pub it's only ever listed as a beer retailer). Other say it was the Duddeston Hall Inn on the corner of Cato St & Somerset St.

A bit of a mystery really what we need is some one who drank there if they will admit to it.

Phil
 
My aunt owned the outdoor at the bottom of cato street north it was called the Rob Roy stores and my uncle Eno had the Sportsman round the corner. I think someone put a photo on of the out door but if was much earlier than aunt being there, I think she had it in the 50's
 
Hi Paty

Thats the photo of the Beer Retailer that I don't think has ever been listed in Kelly's by name. I have in the past posted a copy of it myself and also a more recent one of the old Brewery that I took last year when down that way.

I for one would like to know if that was the Monkey House or was it the Duddeston Hall Inn?

The only other photo I have of Cato Street from back then is this one and I have to confess I'm not sure if it has been posted before.

Phil


Cato Street 1958.JPG
 
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Patty

I really should read posts more slowly and take in all of what I am being told. I didn't realise that it was an off sales. I always thought it was a pub. No wonder I could never find the name listed.

I used to walk past there twice a day at least in the early 60's when I worked in Cato St North and I never noticed once that it was an outdoor.

Just goes to show it's not only the kids today that walk round with their heads in the clouds.

Phil
 
Hi all, sorry to dig up an old thread. The mill in the picture above, I have always known as Lallian's Mill". I can't find any history connected t it at all under that name. On the OS maps from 1890, it is just marked as "Brewery". I know originally it was used to produce malt for the brewing trade, but did it supply all the breweries in the local area, or was it used for only one brewery?
I've been inside the building a few times in the last few years, and it's condition is worsening every time I go. I'd like to find some definite history to the place if possible, as my wife's grand father used to deliver milk there many years ago.

Neil
 
Hi Virusman

Somebody else was enquiring about Holders Brewery on another forum, this was part of the history of that brewery that I found out about for them.

Phil

Advert Holders.JPG
 
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This is the only picture I have of the so called Monkey House or Duddeston Mill Tavern. I cannot remember where I got the picture so I cannot verify if the name is correct. All I know is that I had a drink in the Monkey House 2 or 3 times and I always thought the pub was on the left in Cato St going up from Saltley Rd. In the pic I have posted the pub seems to be on the right, perhaps I am wrong, I honestly can't remember.

Terry
 

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What an interesting photo Terry. Wonder what the very tall building is in the centre? Viv.
 
Well blow me down Mike. I'd have put money on it having been demolished! Your GE view shows the roof in a really sorry state. In fact it's all near to falling down. Here're a few Streetviews. Viv.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1331991562.146005.jpg
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1331991576.966071.jpg
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1331991593.713120.jpg
 
Terry that photo is not of the Monkey House this was just an outdoor in Cato St North.Just a little way up the hill is the Albion Vaults.The Monkey House was as you say up Cato St which was opposite off the Saltley Rd.Dek
 
Cheers DeK, you're probably right, it was a pic that I got from somewhere and it was already named.

Terry
 
Sorry to resurrect the thread but I was driving up Cato st today and thought about the Monkey House. I used to be an occasional visitor in the early 80s and can honestly say that it was the roughest pub I have ever been in.There were only two rooms and neither had any beer pumps, instead there were a couple of plastic barrels of cider on the bar and a few bottles of guinness behind it on the shelf. Often there were no glasses so customers would bring their own (or rather glasses liberated from near by pubs)and cider (or "rough" as it was known) was about thirty pence a pint. Heating was provided by open fires mainly fed by wood, all of the furniture, some of the floorboards and all of the non metallic parts of the piano had been burnt, insulation was provided by cardboard taped over broken windows. The urinals were overflowing and must have seeped into the cellar and at one time there was an open gas pipe on the wall with a flame billowing from it from where an old gas light fitting had been snapped off.
As for the customers.....
 
ariel


You surprise me I would have thought that the Duddeston Hall Inn (the Monkey House) would have closed much earlier than the 80's. Not that I have any knowledge that it didn't only I thought most of that area was cleared by the early 70's.
 
It was open in July 1981 when I moved out to Zimbabwe but was closed in 1985 when I got back. At the time I knew it all the other buildings in the area where down so it stood alone. Its fate must have been set hence the state of the place, drug dealing was rife, as was prostitution and outbreaks of extreme violence. A lot of the punters were ex lags and used to cook stews on the fires at lunch time and play endless games of draughts. They were good at draughts from time in prison. If you pratted about with the remains of the piano you were warned about being banned but the only people I saw get an actual ban were a couple of dealers who cut up a junkie although a gang of travellers were not allowed to go into the pub but were allowed to drink if they sat on the back of their wagon out on Cato St with their own chairs and tables.
 
Talking about Cato street, seem to remember an engineering company call Richards that used to be based in Cato street back in the early sixties, we used to deliver Gardner engine blocks and crankcases for machining before we reconditioned them, are they still there ?
 
What a horror story...makes the Gullet seem positively sanitary. What was the council doing in allowing it to exist at all....let alone even after the rest of the street was demolished. To think that we are talking about times up to the 1980s not 18...jeesh.
 
I think it was allowed to be there because it kept a lot of nuisance villains in the same place and off the streets. All the time we used the place we never saw a copper look in despite the amount of crime centered on the place. One day a man who was known to me as a career burglar parked a set of ladders outside the monkey on the way to a job while he nipped in for a couple of pints of rough but was indignant when he went out and his ladders had been nicked. The same man jumped over Saltley Gate bridge whilst being pursued by the police and broke both legs.
It was not the best pub I have ever been in but my god it was memorable and a lot of fun at times dodging broken glasses.
 
A photo of the Monkey House at around the time being discussed I would imagine. I have only recently gotten hold of this copy but, as usual I cant remember where I got it. Though I think it may be one of "puddings" as he has passed a good few of old Nechells photos on to me.
 

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A couple more photos of Cato Street, one from the Saltley Rd end that shows Wards metal dealers. The other from Duddeston Mill Rd end showing the Manor Arms on the corner. Of you look down the street on this one you can just see the Monkey House projecting out from the rest of the buildings almost on the left of the photo.
 

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Phil said:
A photo of the Monkey House at around the time being discussed I would imagine. I have only recently gotten hold of this copy but, as usual I cant remember where I got it. Though I think it may be one of "puddings" as he has passed a good few of old Nechells photos on to me.
Click to expand...

I can confirm that is the Monkey from the twin front doors, note the space where the brewery sign used to be but I also note that the glass still seems to be in the windows so this puts the picture to be pre 78 when I first went there.
 
ariel badger said:
I can confirm that is the Monkey from the twin front doors, note the space where the brewery sign used to be but I also note that the glass still seems to be in the windows so this puts the picture to be pre 78 when I first went there.
Click to expand...

Ariel, you took me back to age 19 (1976) when a bunch of us youngsters thought we'd try out the Monkey House for a laugh. It was exactly as you described (I'd forgotten about the broken gas pipe!) and every other floorboard was missing, thanks to the roaring fire. And we were told "no trouble in here lads!" when we walked in.
We all bought a pint of real cloudy scrumpy from one of those two barrels and I don't think one of us finished it.
The pub was infamous all over Nechells, Saltley, Washwood Heath, Alum Rock.
 
Thanks mate, people think I am making it up but that was the reality of the Monkey House, cooking stew or mussels op the fires, overflowing toilets and buying prescription drugs from OAPs. The only bans I can remember was to a group of travelers who were only banned from drinking inside after a very nasty fight, they used to sit on their flatback truck (complete with tables and chairs) and drink in the street and some dealers that hurt a punter who owed cash.
 
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