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Gravelly Hill - Slade Road / The Slade

I have a postcard of the first picture above Viv and I believe that it was taken around 1905. The shop was a motorcycle shop in my day and was owned by Fred Hanks. The second postcard has St Thomas' Road on the left and Hunton Hill on the right. Our family greengrocer's shop (from 1928 until 1986) was the first of the row of shops on the right hand side, slightly further up the Slade, between Hunton Hill and Fentham Road.
Looking at the picture with the stationary shop - I think this is the bottom of Hunton Hill, where it meets Slade Road - and Fred Hanks is just visible in the distance on the curve of the road. Fred Hanks closed down a few/couple of years ago now, and is currently being converted into something else by the look of it...
 
I painted a water colour of Slade Rd recently when the trams were still running and before they built the tunnel under the railway bank, first left under the tunnel was Hillside Road were we lived from 1962 till 1987. The trams stopped running about 1951 before we moved there. Eric
 

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  • Slade Rd Erdington 1950.JPG
    Slade Rd Erdington 1950.JPG
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I must know you G T.I lived in Mere Road went to Slade Road School and left in 1957 Iplayed cricket for the school and football and won the javelin competition in the Coronation games at Jaffery Road playing fields and came second in throwing the cricket ball.Where you worked in the garage Mickey Kenning who played fot Villa and Wolves lived in the prefabs opposite the garage The cafe was Eastgates run by the familly I used to go down there nearly every night and pop in the Brookvale Pub for a crafty half.
I was born in mere road, can I ask what number and when did you leave ?
 
I was born in mere road, can I ask what number and when did you leave ?
Hi Roz-Moo, i`m not sure of the house number but it was a corner house near the sandy hills. I lost touch with Mike when i joined the army, but i know he moved to Spain when he finished with his dads business ( his dad owned a lot of clubs in Brum ) I lived just round the corner in Doidge road.
 
Hi Roz-Moo, i`m not sure of the house number but it was a corner house near the sandy hills. I lost touch with Mike when i joined the army, but i know he moved to Spain when he finished with his dads business ( his dad owned a lot of clubs in Brum ) I lived just round the corner in Doidge road.
have you seen the video where the ATV interviewed children at slade road school
 
That's great TV Deltics! I loved watching that when I first spotted it. We were just the same as that a few years afterwards, I was among those that went back to the school in 2003 when it invited former pupils back for it's 100th. The memories came flooding back. :)
 
That's great TV Deltics! I loved watching that when I first spotted it. We were just the same as that a few years afterwards, I was among those that went back to the school in 2003 when it invited former pupils back for it's 100th. The memories came flooding back. :)
i was sent to the abbey and then stockland green then i got a job at the albany hotel in brum, if you look at the video thats me opening the car door lol
 
i was sent to the abbey and then stockland green then i got a job at the albany hotel in brum, if you look at the video thats me opening the car door lol
did you see the video of noele gordon driving down slade road, and the old cinema next to the brookvale pub, my dad used to sell his comics there too 3 for a bob . i recall we rented the cafe near the bridge, never had much custom but it was fun for a while
 
did you see the video of noele gordon driving down slade road, and the old cinema next to the brookvale pub, my dad used to sell his comics there too 3 for a bob . i recall we rented the cafe near the bridge, never had much custom but it was fun for a while
Hi Deltics,
You brought back memories for me with your post. Although my dad went to your school (long time before you) it's isn't that which jogged my memory. It was your mention of the 3 comics. Dad always went to the Greyhound in Court Lane on a Sunday morning and very often brought back comics for my brother and me, much to Mom's disgust. Needless to say we enjoyed them. I seem to remember that they weren't the usual ones we saw in the shops and often wondered where they came from.
 
Lyn, I'm pretty sure that as you say the shops at 341 have been demolished and a whole new row built. They were a long time in the building but when we went past some time ago several of them were occupied. At first I thought they were going to be residential but they are separate shop units.
 
They are photos of 341 Slade Road Vivienne14. As has been said, that was the bakery. It was run by Mr Salmon during my time @ 331 and by Barkers before that. The shop fronts that were 331 & 333 have been somewhat "modernised" Astoness as you rightly suggested and the old shops do remain hiding behind their new facades. It does look like the rest of the shops leading to the corner of Fentham Road were replaced by the current owner. I have to say that those photographs @ 152 above demonstrate in my opinion, that "new" is so often not better than "old". That bank of shops, would now be almost unrecognisable to the shopkeepers that traded there fifty years ago. I much prefer them as they were, but as a former resident of one of them, I would say that wouldn't I?

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The former "off licence" is the shop, on the corner of Slade Road & Fentham Road above as it now looks, and 341 is the second shop down (although now part of the same business). The building at the rear in which the baking and food preparation was done (that contained the large original oven), was knocked down, when it became one of many so called "supermarkets" on the road, that replaced the individual butchers, grocery, greengrocers, newsagents and hardware shops that had previously stood there since the early 1900s.
 
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Slade Road
As I look at old street pics I've noticed that Slade Road Erdington seems to have been one of the most photographed roads in Birmingham, there are dozens of photos. Many of them have a tram somewhere in the view so maybe the photographer liked trams.
Slade Road long ago at the junction with Hunton Hill.
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The corner building and others are still there although a roof dormer window has been removed and other changes.
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