• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team
  • HI folks the server that hosts the site completely died including the Hdd's and backups.
    Luckily i create an offsite backup once a week! this has now been restored so we have lost a few days posts.
    im still fixing things at the moment so bear with me and im still working on all images 90% are fine the others im working on now
    we are now using a backup solution

Church Road, Yardley.

ALB10N

ALB10N

master brummie
A question from my wife & daughter.... (We lived next door to this place, now our daughter does)

On the corner of Church road & Wroxton road, Yardley, there is now a veterinary centre..... Before that it was a bathroom showroom. On the angled corner of the shop, above the ground floor is a very faded sign.... What did/does it say? (It can be clearly seen on Google maps)

Presumably built in the early 1900's, I wonder whether it started as a shop, or, got converted later.

Any info will hopefully shut 'em up!!!! ;)

Cheers

BiLL
 
I remember the bathroom shop, I used to live at number 3 Wroxton.

Before it was the bathroom shop it was a grocers owned by the Ayres. This would have been in the mid-50's. The Ayres also had the house next door in Church Road. The people who had the bathroom shop, knocked the house through to enlarge their showroom.

My mother-in-law in Newcroft Grove used to have the Newsagents on Church Road. She has sent her brother up the road (he lives in Church Road) to have a look!
 
The Ayres bought the shop as a grocers, my MIL is a good friend of the daughter so she is going to ask her who they bought it off.

The previous owners had opened a little cafe at the back of the shop.

There used to be another shop at the other end of Wroxton too. On the corner, same side. But when I lived there (1977-1980) it had already be converted ot a house.
 
In 1911 Albert Johnson lived on the corner of Wroxdton and Church. He was a Painter and Decorator. He used to keep his ladders etc, at the side between no. 1 Wroxton. His wife Annie opened the shop.
 
According to the 1950's Kelly's Trade Directory in that year is was occupied by a George Raymond Ariss Grocer, and as G.R. are the only initials that can be made out on the sign I would assume he is the gentleman responsible for it.

Phil
 
I used to live in Croft Road, opposite Wroxton Road, when we lived there, there was a general store on the corner of Wroxton Road that was converted to a house after we left in 1977.
Trebor
 
Sue, Ian Pettit bought our house when we left to live in Sutton Coldfield.
Trebor
 
Last edited:
What a co-incidence. Unfortunately we lost contact with Ian not long after he moved from Croft Road, which was in the early 1980's
 
AHA!!!!

That's a great response..... :) Thank you all for taking the time and trouble.

I lived at 232 from around 1986 - 1993ish... We paid £18,800 for it. The shop next door told us they were considering buying it themselves at the time...

Sue,... Did your MIL also own the Launderette opposite Woolworths?

Cheers!

BiLL
 
Mother in Law's (Margaret Dawkins) father used to own the newsagent's at 212 Church Road. They also had the house on the corner of Church Road and Blakemere. I know the laundrette you mean, no they didn't own that but a member of the family worked there for years.

We bought 3 Wroxton Road in 1977 for £6000.00. It hadn't had anything done, although it had electricity, the original gas mantles where still there. Birmingham Council used to give a grant in the 70's for "repairs and renovations", so we were fortunate to be able to get new windows and a new roof. The dining room floor was quarry tiles but they all had to go and (a condition of the grant) a concrete floor laid. No central heating though, just an open fire in the "parlour"!
 
Read with interest your comments on Church Road, my grandfather lived at 218, he also owned a cycle shop in the early 1950's in the same road. His name was William Linforth. His wifes parents (surname - Horsley) lived in Church Terrace - opposite St Edburgha's Church, also in Church Road Yardley. Wonder if you or others have any information on these.
 
Kat,

Are you any relation to Sismey and Linforth ?
They designed furnace's for the glass industry.
The were situtated in Yardley on the coventry Road, facing Preston Road. The firm moved to Redditch in the 1990's.

Bo
 
Last edited:
Could be a connection, the Linforth name is fairly unusal, I will try and look into that. Ironically my father W Linforth was a glazier for metro' Cammell Bickenhill, thanks for info
 
Kat, if your grandfathers shop was where Subway shop is now(just pastYew tree lane)lremember going there to buy a new cycle about 1950. Margaret.
 
Margaret, How interesting, I would say that is the same shop, as a child I visited the shop twice it was fairly small, W Linforth came to live with us eventually and the remains of the stock was stored in our shed. I was in England recently but there was so much to do in a short time and this was one place I couldn't recognize, we visited Church Road, missed out on Church Terrace also.
 
I've just been talking to mother-in-law, whos'e father had the newsagents in Church Road. She tells me that "Daddy Linforth" as he was always known, had the shop on the corner of Wroxton Road (the oposite corner to the grocery shop which became Kelly's the Plumbers). She said he was a wonderful man and repaired every puncture in Yardley. It was a very small shop.

Just our of interest also, when I lived in Wroxton Road (1977-1980) our neighbour's name was Barbara Horsley, this was her maiden name, I never knew her married name.

MIL still lives just around the corner from the Yew Tree and Wroxton, she's been in Yardley for about 60 years.
 
Mr.Linforths shop was crammed full of bicycles, bike frames, bike forks and wheels etc, i and the rest of kids pre & post WW2 if our bike wheels got buckled would go to Linforths and he would work on the spokes tightening & loosening them until he had straightenen the wheel rim and only charged a few old pence, i remember he was nearly always smoking a cigarette with a long ash on it. Len.
 
mah, Linforths cycle shop was past the former Woolworths store over Croft Rd past the houses and the former Citizens Advice shop past some houses and the you got to the cycle shop. Len.
 
suemalings, Does you MIL remember the big house on the corner of Church Rd/Croft Rd, George Hardy who lived there was my friend and went to Church Rd school, Tullets crockery, glassware & fancy goods shop i remember as well. Len.
 
For all those replies and interesting comments, thanks. Google maps shows the shop at 230 but the no' on shop is 226 now a hairdressers/ barber's shop. This is just a few doors away from the address on the 1911 census that states 218 as the address W. Linforth lived at.Thanks kat
 
Len, the house that your friend George Hardy lived, is still there! It was called The Shrubbery. Now the back is obscured by the carpet shop, Ray's Wallpapers and an opticians but if you come up Croft Road and into Newcroft you can see the house. (MIL lives in Newcroft). She tells me that Tullets was a Boot Repairer in Church Road, Mr Hope, the hairdresser, up near the bike shop and Alf Holloway had the hardware store which is where the Citizens Advice Bureau was but I think has now been turned back into a house. Next door to the shop that was Mr Holloway's was a "antique" shop owned by a welsh man and his daughter. Do you remember the Dawkins Newsagents, they owned the shop from 1944 to 1973.
 
Just remembered that the man who owned the antique shop was Mr Vaughan.

Also Len, Newcroft Grove was the garden of the Shrubbery. Do you remember the houses being built? I think it was around 1950.
 
suemalings, Thanks for that info, i thought i thought George`s house had been demolished to make room for the shops now i realize it is the garden that has gone, i have seen George shopping around the Yew Tree but by the time i have parked my car i have lost sight of him, he limps and one arm is not very mobile i think it was because of polio when he was a small child maybe he still lives in the house. Len.
 
The house is a business now, something to do with computers. We usually end up parking across the drive when we visit Birmingham as MIL lives on the corner of Newcroft and parking is pretty difficult in that area.
 
I see that someone mentioned Ray's wallpaper shop at the Yew Tree, did you know that he was the Ray's wallpaper shop from Alum Rock Rd and that he died aged 80 on 21st May.

Regards trebor
 
Thats sad news Trebor, I have used that shop for over 30 years. great staff nothing to much trouble. I think his son in law Bob runs it now.
 
I used to live in Saltley and my mom and dad always bought walpaper from Ray's Shop on Alum Rock. Wasn't that owned by Ray's (of Yardley) father?
 
Hello Sue,

I don't ever remember Ray's father in the Saltley shop, only Ray, my husband Rob and myself used to live in Croft Road and bought our wallpaper from the Yardley shop, we used to reminisce with Ray about Saltley whenever we were in there. Rob and I are both from Saltley.

Regards trebor
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top