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Pype Hayes Estate

Templer

Templer

Brummie
This may be of interest to anyone that still harbours fond memories of the Pype Hayes estate in Erdington, it's rebuilding is almost complete, and these are the last of the Boswell houses that remain of the hundreds that made up the estate, and these will very soon be no more.
they were not the best of houses but it will be sad to see them finally disappear.
Brian

Pype_Hayes_Boswell.jpg
Pype_Hayes_Boswell_2.jpg
 
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Nice one Brian.
Be nice if that last block was kept, to show people what the houses were like.
 
What are the new ones like. They are cheerfull looking and tidy in the picture. What are the new ones worth or are they council houses, if that system still exists now.
 
Thank you for publishing the photographs of the Pype Hayes Houses, they bought back many happy memories for me.

My mother was born in Springthorpe Road and went to Paget road School. My aunts and uncles all lived in the area and I spent many a happy sunday afternoon visiting relatives there and playing with my cousins. We would all sit down together for sunday tea and the kids could not have any blamonge and jelly or chocolate marshmellows unless they had eaten all their salad and ham sandwiches first.

Another sunday afternoon treat on the way to the bus going home was a vimto and packet of crisps from one of the pub outdoors, I have never been able to find anything to taste so good again.

There is a certain pang of sadness to see the old houses being replaced by new houses and apartments but a close second to this comes the regret for the loss of the values and comfort of family life from a bygone era which are never likely to see again.

Life goes on regardless.

Louisa
 
Hi Rupert
The houses are very nice, the estate is about 85% private the rest is a mixture of council and housing association houses, there is a good percentage of bungalows for the elderly, there are residences for the blind and also for those with learning difficulties who have resident carers.
I don't know what the house prices are now, but before the credit crunch they ranged between about £150.000 up to the top end of over £400,000.
Brian
 
Templer, What a coincidence, me and my friend were down Pype Hayes Road this very day, visiting our old haunts, I lived about 150 yards from the black and white house (the only one still occupied) on the corner of Pype Hayes and Springthorpe Road,and my friend Nipper lived just around the corner in Springthorpe Road, our drive round brought back some very happy memories,like standing out our hold house, (now two bungalows) visiting Paget Road school, retracing the route we took from the school to Erdington baths,remembering were so and so lived, (especially were the girls lived!!!;)) Oh so many memories.
 
Louisa said:
Thank you for publishing the photographs of the Pype Hayes Houses, they bought back many happy memories for me.

My mother was born in Springthorpe Road and went to Paget road School. My aunts and uncles all lived in the area and I spent many a happy sunday afternoon visiting relatives there and playing with my cousins. We would all sit down together for sunday tea and the kids could not have any blamonge and jelly or chocolate marshmellows unless they had eaten all their salad and ham sandwiches first.

Another sunday afternoon treat on the way to the bus going home was a vimto and packet of crisps from one of the pub outdoors, I have never been able to find anything to taste so good again.

There is a certain pang of sadness to see the old houses being replaced by new houses and apartments but a close second to this comes the regret for the loss of the values and comfort of family life from a bygone era which are never likely to see again.

Life goes on regardless.

Louisa
Click to expand...


Wonderful memories Louisa.
Two more pctures you may like to see, the first taken from Tyburn road looking up Pype Hayes Rd, Springthorpe Rd to the right in front of the apartments.
The second, Paget Rd school taken from Pype Hayes Rd looking up what used to be the top end of Varley Rd.
 
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coopbill7 said:
Templer, What a coincidence, me and my friend were down Pype Hayes Road this very day, visiting our old haunts, I lived about 150 yards from the black and white house (the only one still occupied) on the corner of Pype Hayes and Springthorpe Road,and my friend Nipper lived just around the corner in Springthorpe Road, our drive round brought back some very happy memories,like standing out our hold house, (now two bungalows) visiting Paget Road school, retracing the route we took from the school to Erdington baths,remembering were so and so lived, (especially were the girls lived!!!;)) Oh so many memories.
Click to expand...

Coopbill7 we may have past each other, those pictures were only taken this afternoon.
Brian
 
Does anyone remember when the residents were offered new housing they were able to store some of their moveable plants. My son worked in a local neighbourhood office at the time and organised this for the residents. I can't remember where they were stored while the folks moved from one home to the other but will ask him. Jean.
 
HI templer, We were there about1.30/2.00pm. I was standing outside the school looking down Varley Road!!
 
coopbill7 said:
HI templer, We were there about1.30/2.00pm. I was standing outside the school looking down Varley Road!!
Click to expand...

It was a little later than that, but from where you were standing,
a little further down the road and you could have looked through my kitchen window to see what my wife was cooking for tea. :)
 
How sad certainly lived up to their promises this Goverment:redface:
 
I lived in Varley Road from 1957 until I moved to Tamworth in 1980. I worked at AMAC in Wood Lane from 1974 to 1979. Last time I was there was about 2003.

I have some very happy memories of those times. Thanks for the photo’s.
 
Paul Higgins said:
I lived in Varley Road from 1957 until I moved to Tamworth in 1980. I worked at AMAC in Wood Lane from 1974 to 1979. Last time I was there was about 2003.

I have some very happy memories of those times. Thanks for the photo’s.
Click to expand...

Glad you like them Paul, if you visited in 2003 you will have seen just how much the estate has changed, there are even bigger changes now.
You may be interested in this picture, Varley road taken from Pype Hayes Rd towards St Mary's church.
Brian
 
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Templer said:
Glad you like them Paul, if you visited in 2003 you will have seen just how much the estate has changed, there are even bigger changes now.
You may be interested in this picture, Varley road taken from Pype Hayes Rd towards St Mary's church.
Brian
Click to expand...

Brian, thanks. I lived just on the right of that picture. I think just behind the first tree, but with the new houses it might have been the second.

In fact, if the lamp post is still in the same place as the one that was there when i was a kid, it is definately just out of shot where the first tree is.

I sat in that gutter many a summer digging tar out of the road with a lollipop stick! Even though all the old houses have gone, the trees are still there. Memories. Ya love 'em or ya hate 'em! These memories are all good.

Here's a couple of pics taken in our back garden. The one on the left is me, on the right me with my sister. The girl in the back was a family friend and the old geezer bending over is my Dad. Sorry they're a bit blurry- my other sisters fault!

Probably late 60's-ish.

Notice the outside toilet (or the technical term- bog!) next door? Our's is hidden behind the shed. We were posh like that you know!
 
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Frothblower,

I met and courted my wife when she was a children's nurse in residence at Pype Hayes Hall, in Pype Hayes Park, which was a City Council children's home in those days. I used to walk it from there back to Duddeston if I sometimes missed the last tram back to town. (My old Marine drill corporal used to have a saying in his own inimitable way: "Love'll draw yer further than dynamite'll blow yer...!)

But I haven't been back to Pype Hayes in the 57 years we've been married, and I'm a little puzzled by the posts commenting on the "re-building" of the estate.


What's been going on down there while my back has been turned?

Cheers,

Jim Pedley (pedlarman)
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Hello, Pedlarman. I’m sure frothy won’t mind me responding and correct me if I am wrong and fill in bits I miss.
I was raised on the Pype Hayes estate and lived there for 21 years.
Basically, the pre-war council houses were deemed unsafe and unrepairable due to the concrete and steel design I believe it is known as concrete cancer.
There was also a huge rise in crime and drugs so the council decided the houses should go and be replaced with new housing. (Funny- they didn’t knock the MP’s houses down when they were caught fiddling their expenses!)
Anyway, that’s the gist of it. Houses were beyond repair, the tenants were beyond help so get rid of them.
 
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pedlarman, i worked in pype hayes hall in the park from about 1990 to 1998. i was a night officer there as it was a home for teenagers and run by the city council. most of the children had been in trouble with the law so it was a difficult job trying to keep them in and settling them down for the night. in fact it was chaotic most nights! in the later nineties it changed to a day care centre but still with the council, so no children slept there after that time. i believe it is still operating as a day care centre now.
 
Well that's it then!.. the last block was felled this morning. As it has been mentioned, terrible houses, but still a sad day, after all they were a part of brums history. :(
 
Templar, they were not really so bad if you came from the back-to-backs in Saltley! And to be honest, they weren't much smaller than the house I live in now in Tamworth and the construction- timber framed with a brick skin leaves a lot to be desired!

Once the council had put the toilet inside, bathroom upstairs and enlarged the kitchen, they were pretty decent. Pity it all happened too late and the serious problems were beyond repair.
 
Your right Paul, they were ok after the improvments,
but they were never going to be able to maintain them in the long term.
I spent 24 years in one in paget rd and was very happy there.
Brian
 
Hello, shera,

I've just checked with my wife and she says that she started at Pype Hayes Hall in 1947, when she was seventeen. (Never realised before now that 1947 was the year I was called up for National Service).

Anyway, she says in those days it was a home for orphaned or abandoned children, ranging from tiny babies to five-year-olds. And she says that it was a great place to work in - well, it would be for her, wouldn't it? She wasn't dealing with with delinquent teenagers...!

Thanks for coming back to me.

Cheers, and A Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Jim Pedley (pedlarman)
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Jim
Thanks for your posting. For my own research of an unmarried teenage family member who abandoned her two children in the late 60's I would be interested to know what happened to the children in the Pye hayes home who had reached the age of five years old. Were they allowed to stay there or were they moved to another home.

Also if there were two brothers one a baby and the other aged about three would they have been kept together or adopted seperate once one reached five.

Louisa
 
Louisa said:
Jim
Thanks for your posting. For my own research of an unmarried teenage family member who abandoned her two children in the late 60's I would be interested to know what happened to the children in the Pye hayes home who had reached the age of five years old. Were they allowed to stay there or were they moved to another home.

Also if there were two brothers one a baby and the other aged about three would they have been kept together or adopted seperate once one reached five.

Louisa
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Hi, Louisa: My wife is not in at the moment so I can't check with her immediately. I'll ask your question when she comes back. But I don't know whether she will be able to remember details of administration methods after such a long time... We'll see when she comes home.

Cheers,

Jim Pedley (pedlarman)
 
Louisa said:
Jim
Thanks for your posting. For my own research of an unmarried teenage family member who abandoned her two children in the late 60's I would be interested to know what happened to the children in the Pye hayes home who had reached the age of five years old. Were they allowed to stay there or were they moved to another home.

Also if there were two brothers one a baby and the other aged about three would they have been kept together or adopted seperate once one reached five.

Louisa
Click to expand...

Louisa,

This morning I have written two replies to your queries. The first long one I lost when I clicked for review and up came a new window telling me I hadn't "logged in". So, dutifully, I logged in at the new window and began, all over again, to re-write what I had written before, and a few more paragraphs, in addition.

When I had finished, I clicked for review. You'll never believe it, but up came that window again to tell me I hadn't logged in...!!! Well, it's a liar. This time I had logged in...

Trouble is, Louisa, I simply cannot write the same long post again, today. If you don't mind, I'll try again tomorrow. Meanwhile, I have asked Postie what I am doing wrong...

Sorry.

Cheers,

Jim Pedley (pedlarman)
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Pedlarman, a quick tip. Write your posts in your favourite word processor for copying and pasting into the forum. Then if you have problems, you don’t lose your post and if the problems are ongoing, you can save it to your computer for later when the problems are sorted.
 
Thanks, Paul: Postie has given me the same advice. I shall certainly be trying what you both suggest. And I won't be caught out again - even if I have to click for a "Review" after every sentence...!!!

Thanks again.

Merry Christmas.

Cheers,

Jim Pedley, (pedlarman)
 
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