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Harborne

Here are some other people connected with Harborne and commemorated by Birmingham Civic Society Blue Plaques (not inc David Cox & W.H.Auden above)

Sir Granville Bantock. Composer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granville_Bantock) - Metchley Abbey, 93 Metchley Lane, Birmingham, West Midlands B17 0JB (Was there ever a real Abbey?)

Alderman W Byng Kenrick - Civic Leader and Educationalist - Grove Park, Grove Lane, Harborne (which I believe he donated)

William Slim - Field Marshall, Viscount Slim of Burma - 144, Poplar Avenue, Harborne

Francis Aston - 1922 Nobel Prize in Chemistry [+ some useful work on Brewing!] - Tennal Road, Harborne (does anyone know where?)
 
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Ok so that poem is famous from the film "Four Weddings and a funeral" (an excellent reading I would say
) and is very touching (never do the full poem, natch, not PC). But what else did Auden do? He wasn't covered in my education or subsequently (I don't think so anyway - I was probably being very naughty at the time) - so what is his next famous work? He was just mentioned by Tony Robinson in surprise as having an MI at Westminster Abbey

From what I can find in the matrix,:
* He did "The Night Mail" (very "pedestrian" if you ask me, though the vid is great)
* "As I Walked Out One Evening" name-checks Bristol Street
* "The Unknown Citizen" seems to be the most interesting in the post-modern sense (& a good one for genealogists!):

Am I missing something?
 
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:D Very good Bernard - I am sure there are a few more Wedding attendances in you yet :shocked:
 
HI AIDEN
I beleive there is only one undertaker up the high street now at the top end the name is furbers
they have been in birmingham for donkeys years ;they orinate from old lady wood
and there most senior person is a guy whom was born and bred in ladywood
down from kingedwards rd i have previously met him in person ;
and he knows the area very well ; even lady wood and from time to time he still finds the time to go down to ols pubs and see old friends from way back ,and it works out some of them are my most valid friends as well
there fore fathers was and came from alston street oppersite resovoir rd
on the corner in the old days of the back to back house ,and oppersite was was known as blue bottle park because of the ladywood rd police station was virtualy next door and the old coppers always walked across the green ;
of the park ;we used to spend alot of time in there when we was kids cheeking the old parkie
and scrumping up at the ivy bush , best wishes Astonian ;;;
 
HI AIDEN ;
Yes i surpose it is really but its an family carrer he chose to do and to keep the family trditiongoing onfor centuries as it was is own father and his father before hand
when he comes him after work hours so to speak out of office hours he comes in is casual gear
to the local down spring hill and ladywood and hear laughing and joking with us
you would not know he was an undertaker he his just one of the lads
as i have sid he virtualy grew up with us in the slums of ladywood and went the same school
i would say we could call him jeckle aqnd hide.
but thats the way he as to be be in that bussiness by day solum and wear the mourning suit and dignitys
for the bereaved and he his a very well down to earth guy and educated
at the end of he day we re all human ; [ well i would like to thinkso ] and he is earning a crust as we ll have to do in day and age , but said if you woul meet him you would not think he was an undertaker ;
and he does not tell people either ,he is a highly repectable guy and only his freinds from school days
whom know him personaly knows of his occupatiant ; he lost his own wife about two years ago ;
any way aiden ,i thought i would mention about thomas furber there is a web site
i think they moved to hrbourne long before the slum clearance ever began if my memory serves m correctly
so they do have abit of harborne history as well
by the way aiden did i see correctly not so long back that have demolished the old swimming baths
and also quite few years go i was involved with the harborne tennants asc;
when i lived in roman way ;
have a nice day speak soon ; Astonian ;;
 
Astonian - we are indeed all human and twould be a poor world if we were all the same.

The Harborne baths were still there last time I looked and I read somewhere that they are getting a refurb https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=52...2.458481,-1.958678&spn=0.006943,0.013797&z=16

But the Harborne maternity unit was knocked down and built over. Before that it was mansions of Auden (Blue Plaque on the baths) & Pinsent as I mentioned in earlier posts.

I started a thread on Harborne Tenants which you may wish to read and add to at https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/harborne-tenants.30747/#post-319539

Have a good day. Aidan
 
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Harborne baths closed a few months ago,there are photos taken the day they closed i think its on swimming baths thread and there is a photo of what the new baths will look like
 
Not my favourite building why do they do it,in other places if something really needs replacing,they at least keep the fronts so it still looks pleasing,then they can do their modernising inside
 
It's all money elizabeth. It costs a lot to hold up the front and then build behind it. Ususally its only when planning commitees insist that it is done
Mike
 
Aidan said:
...Francis Aston - 1922 Nobel Prize in Chemistry [+ some useful work on Brewing!] - Tennal Road, Harborne (does anyone know where?)
Click to expand...

Noticed the illustrated answer this question on Bill.Dargue's site :

"Tennal Hall or Tennal House at Camomile Green near Harborne was a large timber-framed house which operated as a farm into the 20th century. There seems to be no evidence that it was allegedly visited by Queen Elizabeth I.
The house, which stood north of the junction of Tennal Road and Tennal Lane, was the childhood home of Francis Aston 1877-1945 who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1922 and is best known for his invention of the mass spectrograph. Tennal was demolished in the 1960s and a Birmingham Civic Society blue plaque commemorating the scientist is attached to a house opposite the site."

Before that it was sometime home to Harborne's largest man - Job Freeth, a farmer who weighed 40stone
 
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He also made other things. From 1872:
Mappjn John, manufacturer of elastic stockings, belts, brace bodices, trusses & instruments for deformity of every kind, cutlery, electro plate &c. 88 Newhall street.
He seems to have specialised in the non-food side of his business, however, as , although he is listed doing cutlering in 1849, this disappears in 1855, 1862 and 1869, only for it to to reappear in 1872
Mike
 
mikejee said:
Aidan
Below is a picture of what is stated was the old workhouse for Harborne & Smethwick....Mike
Click to expand...

Thanks Mike and I'm still admiring this rare workhouse pic you posted earlier.

I noticed on https://harbornelife.co.uk an interesting photo attached. The view is up Lordswood Road to what would become the Old House At Home pub on the left. The remains of Lords Wood is shown on the right which turned into The Burned Heath past the old house.

On magnification I believe that we can spot the end of the Workhouse Building - immediately behind the Old House At Home, on the left and set back from the road - which I think proves my assertion about the current line of housing there that replaced it. Similar view today: https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=52...=38mZYQks8JTEBJ4VAFPlnw&cbp=12,154.98,,0,2.62 and the row of houses with private road and green, treed verge in front now: https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=52...=X88wlncA8YcIGpoYYcxLYw&cbp=12,142.33,,0,3.45

An interesting story is that George Downing, a miser living in the decrepit cottages near Harts Green Farm, hoarded his "mouldy Guineas" under the thatch of one of these. For some reason he decided to use them to buy the Old House At Home in 1875 [tho I can't find any evidence for him in the census]).

Harts Green is where the last Nightingale was said to have sung (or at least heard) in Harborne in 1872. It was on the corner of current War Lane and Church Road [now Vicarage Lane] and the farm was demolished 1934.
 
Below is a letter from 1972 from one who lived in Harborne from the turn odf the century. How many people would get off a bus and push nowadays?
Mike

early_1900_memories_of_harborne.jpg
 
Aiden, The picture of the shops in Hampton Court Road opposite Queens Park reminded me of my childhood (long ago) when I used to go to one of those shops to get my short hair trimmed. Can't remember the names of the shops then, unfortunately.

Anthea.
 
Thanks Anthea - I used to get dragged occasionally here too but can't remember what for! I do remember the butcher "statue" outside, these sort of statues seemed to be quite common in my day and I used to look out for them as they were my size (although this one is larger than I remember!).

Mike - excellent clip thanks - think it is worth pointing the horse-bus fanciers to it also!
 
Hi Elizabeth
I too had my first baby in Lordswood Maternity hospital in Sepetmber 1958. It was a lovely place and the nurses were very kind. We had to stay in the hospital for seven days at that time, the first three days in one ward and then moved to another for the rest of the stay, not like today in one day out the next.

I lived in Weoley Castle but went to Harborne quite regularly. I remember my Father used to go to the Duke of York and the Junction for a 'pint' sometimes and we used the library every week. I still remember climbing the stairs to the first floor. In later years I looked after a Mrs. Annie Chapman whoes father once kept a butchers shop on the High Street in the early 1900's.
 
My sister had three in there,not all at the same time,59,61 and 65 i think then my other sister had her baby in 68,it was a lovely place as is Harborne,remember the pubs you mention,The Duke has gone,but the junction is still there,its such a small world
 
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Elizabeth - just seen your pic of the sweetshop on corner of Serpentine Rd Harborne.The proprietors were the Tennant family.The shop mentioned by another correspondent was Baughan's,this one was opposite the swimming baths in Lordswood Rd.I lived in Harborne as a child in the forties and fifties, the children of the shop owners were friends of my cousin Gillian Scarf,whose Dad had a grocer's shop at 51 High St until the sixties/seventies. Regards Sheila
 
Hello Sheila i lived in Harborne a little later, late sixties and seventies it was a lovely place to live,and i believe still is. I think i have posted a picture of the house i lived in, it is in Station Road.
 
Photo of The Vine[
264850620192051.jpg
 
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The Vine - did it fall down or was it pushed?

Think the houses opposite the Green Man were a remnant of the Nail-Makers cottages/workshops

Love the High St view - I remember the bus stop sign looking like that (may have been a later variant though) with the Police Station on the right and the builders yard that my old man worked at on the left (now All Electric Garage). Modern view at https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&...d=mFDeUgdmRfIigUVbVw7s8g&cbp=12,56.94,,0,7.58
 
dek carr said:
Found these old ones.Dek
Click to expand...
I lived just round from the bus stop,on the second photo,the building on the right was a school at one time, but when i lived there it was a police station. Aidan the old Vine was demolished and rebuilt.
 
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