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OLD BIRMINGHAM PHOTOS FROM STEVEBHx

Well this was taken just before it all changed around here, Lancaster Street 1968. Building on the left was a warehouse, now the council offices - spent many years working here. A close look needs to be made of all the different cars and vans, the Mace delivery lorry advertising Golden Stream Tea and the wooden barriers and gas lamps, can you imagine two way traffic these days.
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Hi Steve, the photographs are great, thank you. Would you remember the Welfare in Lancaster Street. It’s where I used to go with my mom to get baby milk (National Dried I think) for my siblings. Cod liver oil in a bottle and orange juice too. Gosh , yes there was Virol too.. Sure we had our vaccinations there.
 
Apologies for the pen marks - I am really sure that a few hording will make a difference here. Navigation Street 1980.
So much to look at the car names - authorised Agents, the arched windows, brickwork, the concert posters and a ticket for Kiss at Bingley Hall Stafford - £4.75.

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As far as I can tell this shot is roughly in the right place.
 

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Well this was taken just before it all changed around here, Lancaster Street 1968. Building on the left was a warehouse, now the council offices - spent many years working here. A close look needs to be made of all the different cars and vans, the Mace delivery lorry advertising Golden Stream Tea and the wooden barriers and gas lamps, can you imagine two way traffic these days.
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I think this is about the right place
 

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178 Alcester Road 1970, not really looking at the fish shop, more the J.J Gallagher pick up, and the old style JCB on the site. red pen shows the new location of an advert panel - its usually chinagraph so I can remove it !! Note the ornamental eaves on the building.

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Given the distraction on the left I would be surprised if anyone noticed a pick up truck or a JCB.o_O;)
 
Good morning quick one before I forget, on a forum - yes that vague - someone mentioned Lyon Tea house on New Street and I said I had a photo, well here it is 2 New Street in 1970, plenty of people inside and plenty of shoe shops to choose from, note the small boy clutching his bag from the Co Op window what he brought?

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Thanks for this wonderful picture Steve. I have been going 'up town' for as long as I can remember but have no memory of a Lyons Tea Shop on New Street. Also it is in a unit that was part of the 'big top' development, so named because the site on which it was built after clearance due to second world war bombs used to host a circus every year. Hard to imagine now.

Do you or anyone else know when Lyons on New Street closed? In 1970, as a nine year old, I wasn't really interested in tea though the cake would certainly have been welcome! Lyons has an amazing history and the company invented a prototype computer, 'LEO' (Lyons Electronic Office), to manage stock for the many shop. This should have become the basis for British computing but, like many things, was not given sufficient backing.

Incidentally, the boy with the Co-op bag had probably just been to the store around the corner on High Street and consisted of two buildings which were connected by a tunnel underneath High Street. I remember it well because the restaurant was in the basement close to the tunnel and my mom worked there as a waitress between 1975 and 1977 when she got a job at Lucas on Shaftsmoor Lane which was closer to home and where she stayed until she retired. Very sadly, of course, Lucas' factories in Birmingham have all closed and most demolished.
 
Stratford Road / School Lane Hall Green in 1976, builder merchants on the corner probably all changed


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I will admit that I had to look at this a number of times. I walked past this four times a day on my way to and from Hall Green, then Bilateral, School (I went home for lunch) which I attended between 1972 and 1977 and had no memory of this builder's merchant. I remember getting off the 92 bus from town that used at the stop just outside the pub on many occasions though, as we lived on Fox Hollies Road, would try to get the 32 which dropped you off opposite the church.
 
Do you or anyone else know when Lyons on New Street closed? In 1970, as a nine year old, I wasn't really interested in tea though the cake would certainly have been welcome! Lyons has an amazing history and the company invented a prototype computer, 'LEO' (Lyons Electronic Office), to manage stock for the many shop. This should have become the basis for British computing but, like many things, was not given sufficient backing.
The last year I could find them in the phone book was 1975.
 
In 1978, J Lyons was sold to Allied Breweries as it had been in decine since the early 1960s, so it's probably likely that shops were closing well before then. Their computer interests had already been sold to English Electric some years earlier. I used to use the one on the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street on my fortnightly business trips to London - one day it was there and the next time I went it was a clothing shop! :(

Maurice :cool:
 
Given the distraction on the left I would be surprised if anyone noticed a pick up truck or a JCB.o_O;)
Noticed them both, JCB quite elderly actually, yet when you look at it and compare it with todays models very little has changed about the design, now of course 4 in 1 front bucket and levers compatible with a 360 slew. Running a plant training company one of the major whinges by 180 operators who came in for a test up until about 2012 was 'I'm not used to the levers that way round'.
The Austin pick up was a good little workhorse, now of course it would be a crew cab coming out of there. I assume the picture is 60s and what is most evident is the lack of safety precautions on the site. Now it would be all Harass fencing, cones, a vehicle marshall on the gate, signs about PPE, oh happy days.

Bob
 
The last year I could find them in the phone book was 1975.
Hi Janice, Sorry to be a nuisance and I may have asked the question before but do you remember a smaller J Lyons further up New Street. Opposite Woolworths. It was a smaller one.... I maybe getting confused?? Regards
 
Noticed them both, JCB quite elderly actually, yet when you look at it and compare it with todays models very little has changed about the design, now of course 4 in 1 front bucket and levers compatible with a 360 slew. Running a plant training company one of the major whinges by 180 operators who came in for a test up until about 2012 was 'I'm not used to the levers that way round'.
The Austin pick up was a good little workhorse, now of course it would be a crew cab coming out of there. I assume the picture is 60s and what is most evident is the lack of safety precautions on the site. Now it would be all Harass fencing, cones, a vehicle marshall on the gate, signs about PPE, oh happy days.

Bob
Great photo. My husband used to work in the Design Office at JCB, Rocester and Uttoxeter. On the 360’s and 180’s to name a few. It is the old houses in the background that I love..... and I remember Gallagher’s.
 
Noticed them both, JCB quite elderly actually, yet when you look at it and compare it with todays models very little has changed about the design, now of course 4 in 1 front bucket and levers compatible with a 360 slew. Running a plant training company one of the major whinges by 180 operators who came in for a test up until about 2012 was 'I'm not used to the levers that way round'.
The Austin pick up was a good little workhorse, now of course it would be a crew cab coming out of there. I assume the picture is 60s and what is most evident is the lack of safety precautions on the site. Now it would be all Harass fencing, cones, a vehicle marshall on the gate, signs about PPE, oh happy days.

Bob
Interesting but still prefer the view to the left.:):):)


NoddKD, who wil try to behave in future:innocent:
 
Hi Janice, Sorry to be a nuisance and I may have asked the question before but do you remember a smaller J Lyons further up New Street. Opposite Woolworths. It was a smaller one.... I maybe getting confused?? Regards
I only vaguely remember the one in the photo but will try to do some looking up and let you know. Unless someone with a good memory beats me to it.
 
In the 1970 phone book the entry is:
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I have just checked on the map and 61 New street would be further up and opposite Ethel Street. I think that is quite a bit further up than the Woolworths I remember - unfortunately no number is given in New Street for Woolworths so I can't be sure.

Found it Woolworths was 103/104 - I assume the plot of land marked as 102 on this map. The site of the Theatre Royal.
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In the 1970 phone book the entry is:
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I have just checked on the map and 61 New street would be further up and opposite Ethel Street. I think that is quite a bit further up than the Woolworths I remember - unfortunately no number is given in New Street for Woolworths so I can't be sure.

Found it Woolworths was 103/104 - I assume the plot of land marked as 102 on this map. The site of the Theatre Royal.
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Thank you so much Janice. So I am not losing it. ..yet. Couldn’t remember the name of Ethel Street. We were sitting in there one night, who should go past on the 17 or 68 bus but my dad. He was on his way to his night shift at the Birmingham Post (and Mail). He gave us a wave. We moved to Markfield Road in Garretts Green in 1968. We used to live in Gopsal Street. Kind regards Sue.
 
In an appendix to "The First food Empire", by Peter Bird, there is a list of all the Lyons teahouses (and separately other subsiduaries). with their opening and closing dates. Below are the Birmingham ones (its a long list , so hope I hav enot missed any):
53 New St Apr 1910-Aug 1927
2 New St Apr 1911-Jul. 1926
74 Bull St June 1911 -June 1958
7-8 Victoria Square Aug 1915 - Jan 1970
17 Colmore Row Jan 1923 - 1941
101 Bull St Nov 1923-Sept 1928
41 Temple St June 1924-Nov 1926
6 New St July 1926-1941
61-62 New St Aug 1927 - Jan 1975
New St (no number listed) June 1958-Nov 1975
Bull /st (no number listed) Apr 1960-Dec 1962

In the whole country, the first teashop opened 20 Sept 1894, and the last closed 1981
 
Had no idea there were so many. I think I don't remember them as we either came into town, shopped and went home or, on rare occasions, met my Dad for a quick lunch (he worked in town until about 1963) and went to Lewis's. So we didn't go in them. The one at 2 New Street we would have walked by
 
Ciro of Bond Street and J Marks Furriers, and the entrance to Princes Chambers, note the ornamental entrance and I imagine gold lettering on the windows on the first floor. Went in there once there was the old - to me, iron work lift that you opened and closed the doors yourself and could see out of.

J Marks - 71.jpg
 
Great pics Steve. Whatever happened to C&A. Is that an Austin Cambridge outside Princes Chambers. I know you like your cars.
 
Great pics Steve. Whatever happened to C&A. Is that an Austin Cambridge outside Princes Chambers. I know you like your cars.
I was not confident to say now, I realise there are people that know a bit more than me :joy: , you could be right looks like a battleship !!
 
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