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Street furniture

The Digbeth pics are quite interesting as far as the road vehicles are concerned. A lovely open touring car (make not known), two British Railways mechanical horse vehicles, a British Road Services Austin pantechnicon, numerous Mdland Red buses and one BCT and other lorries with what could well be fruit and vegetable loads.
 
The Scammell in the right foreground appears to be at a strange angle, in fact the tractor unit looks as if it is on the pavement.
 
Some very nice street lights in front of the Old Wharf offices. The island has those strange spherical 'things' on the kerbs in front of bollards, I've noticed them before in other photos. The second photo looking down Suffolk Street also shows those spherical 'things' by the bollards.
OldWharf.jpg
SuffolkSt.jpg
 
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I was looking at the people in this old photo of the Bull Ring when I noticed that impressive Post Box behind one of the women. I did post the photo around Christmas time and am restoring it here again.

We had quite a discussion about it back then and don't think we found another like it in any Birmingham old street pics. The Gas Lamps in the photo are also unusual with spiked rods around their poles.
bullringpostbox1.jpg
 
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I think that's the all time best example of a post box. Pity so few were made because of its design fault. So what if it was 8ft high? As long as people could reach the posting hole, surely that's all that matters. I suppose small children wouldn't be able to reach it, but they don't these days either. The crown and cushion design would have be pen a nice addition to our streets of today.

In post #361 the image shows ladies in front of the pillar box really enjoying they're ice creams - such a great photo of Bull Ring day-to-day life. Viv.
 
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Still in the old Bull Ring by Nelson's Statue on the lower side this time, and looking through the railings I cannot see the post box seen in post#429, but the spiky design gas lamps are there. I have in fact seen those gas lamps in a 1950s pic so they lasted through two wars. An energetic looking postman with a very full bag of letters in a rather empty Bull Ring.
BullRingPostman.JPG
 
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Just in that small section of the Bull Ring there are 8 lamps in view- two attached to the Nelson Inn, one outside the Market Hall, another attached to the restaurant next door and 4 street lamps. That's a lot of street lighting for the time of the photo. Viv.
 
REally great set of Victorian photos, and to think maybe 100 years later I was looking at the same Nelson statue.Paul
 
I was interested in those unusual Gas Lamps in the photo c1898 I posted in #432 and did a bit of research. It seems they were specially designed to surround the statue and the poles with the spiked rods were mounted in up-ended naval cannons. When the statue was moved in 1961 during the first redevelopment of the Bull Ring, the carved marble plinth, cannons, and lanterns were lost. The same photo from #432 is shown linked (not reposted) for ref below.
index.php
 
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It hadn't clicked that the lamps were mounted on canons, but of course they are! When this stuff was disposed of - whichever way that might have been - the increasing popular opinion would have been 'out with the old, in with the new'. Old stuff had become less interesting by the 1960s. Viv.
 
I had said that the Gas Lamps had survived two world wars and looked for a pic to prove it. I had seen one pic in several places including the BHF but it was dated 1937 but it seemed to have a 1950s look. The Midland Red bus in front of St Martins Church looks a post war design as do the cars in the distance. I found a copy tagged 'Christmas shopping 1957' so the Gas Lamps had survived two world wars but three years later they were lost in Bull Ring redevelopment. The second photo shows that the glass lantern bits were probably blown off or removed in the 1940 bombing, but the statue was protected with a brick shelter.

Pic 1 Bull Ring 1957
Christmas-25.jpg

Pic 2 Bull Ring 1940 from a forum post.
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So very sad so much of Birmingham's history, was lost or stolen in the early 60's, of course after the end of the Napoleonic wars, a massive amount of Cannon ordinance, of both Army and Navy was spare, and lots of these were used in towns and city's as, wheel guards on street corners, and ally ways blockers etc. Paul
 
Yes Paul. You can still see some canons functioning as bollards. Perfect use for them. Viv.
 
paul stacey said:
So very sad so much of Birmingham's history, was lost or stolen in the early 60's, of course after the end of the Napoleonic wars, a massive amount of Cannon ordinance, of both Army and Navy was spare, and lots of these were used in towns and city's as, wheel guards on street corners, and ally ways blockers etc. Paul
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Here's an article to illustrate Paul's posting

https://www.meccanoindex.co.uk/MMpage.php?I_page=72070355&Mline=28565&id=1455966709

There are two pages. To get to the next and get back, use the big arrows in the top left corner.
 
Another photo c1898 showing that powerful looking Victorian post box. Nice view of the plinth under the statue.
PostBoxNelson.JPG
 
Thank you oldMohawk, re pic 2 #439, I had seen this this picture before but it didn't register with me that the Nelson Statue had it's own air-raid shelter! I must be more observant!
I wish it still had that lovely plinth with figures around.
rosie.
 
Did the shelter cover the statue and the plinth it just the plinth? Shame they went to all that trouble to protect it only to later loose the lovely figures around the plinth. Viv.
 
rosie said:
Thank you oldMohawk, re pic 2 #439, I had seen this this picture before but it didn't register with me that the Nelson Statue had it's own air-raid shelter! I must be more observant!
I wish it still had that lovely plinth with figures around.
rosie.
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And a drinking fountain! Occasionally you see disused drinking fountains - but that's a whole other topic.

maria
 
Vivienne14 said:
Did the shelter cover the statue and the plinth it just the plinth? Shame they went to all that trouble to protect it only to later loose the lovely figures around the plinth. Viv.
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Hi Viv - I would think they built it over the plinth and statue. There is a photo of 'Bull Ring damage after heavy raid' on an 'images for sale' web site (see link) which shows the statue out in the open with bomb damage around it. This almost suggests that the statue survived an air raid without protection and was hurriedly added although the brick work looks weathered. The stock photo does show loads of bricks on the footpaths.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-w...april-1940-bull-ring-birmingham-83386809.html

Maria Magenta said:
And a drinking fountain! Occasionally you see disused drinking fountains - but that's a whole other topic.
maria
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Hi Maria I suppose drinking fountains are very much part of street furniture and are probably visible in many old photos.

oldmohawk
 
When a lad there were quite a few drinking fountains around, mainly in parks, but one or two in public places, great ornate things with marble and granite bowls and with great brass taps, or fixed drinking mugs of brass on chains.Paul
 
Yes Paul. drinking fountains seem to have lost their drinking cups over time, like the Angel fountain on Temple Row. Here it's photographed in 1946 with, I presume, the cups still in place (well at least the chains are in view). But the fountain today no longer even has the chains attached. (Second modern day photo below by Ell Brown)

image.jpegimage.jpeg

The fountain, made of bronze in 1850, originally stood outside Christ Church, at the junction of Colmore Row and New Street. It was moved when Christ Church was demolished in 1899. Viv.
 
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Sometimes dates on images seem wrong and I was looking at the date tagged to the stock image mentioned in post#344 which was given as 10th April 1940. At that date nothing seemed to be happening it was called 'the phoney war' and some evacuees had started returning. The bombing of Birmingham did not really start until August 1940 and the date on the photo should be 10th April 1941 which seems to be confirmed by an entry in a Birmingham schoolboy's diary quoted below.

THURSDAY 10th APRIL 1941
The city centre destroyed
We had another terrible night of bombing. Up town the Bull Ring was bombed and St. Martin’s Church was badly damaged, also the shops in New Street, the Midland Arcade, High Street and Dale End. In Broad Street a high-explosive bomb destroyed the Prince of Wales Theatre. Everywhere up town was on fire. The bombing was also very bad at Small Heath, Aston and Nechells. https://brianwilliams.org.uk/diary/1941.html
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Information given after the war was that on the 10th April 1941,
235 bombers of Luftflotte III dropped 280 tons of High Explosive and 40,000 Incendiary bombs on Birmingham.

So it looks like Nelson's statue was unprotected in April 1941 and the brick shelter may have been erected in anticipation of more heavy bombing to come ... but the Luftwaffe had become busy with the invasion of the USSR.
 
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The Angel fountain as it was when located in front of Christ Church in the 1890s (set in the wall and just below the first two columns) and soon to be re-located to Temple Row.
image.jpeg
And the fountain in 1953 in Temple Row without drinking cups. Viv.
image.jpeg
 
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A magnificent piece of street furniture well protected by bollards opposite the Workman's General Insurance Co Ltd Offices at Broad St Corner. The men with the step ladder had probably been working on it as they look across. I have not been able to find any different photos of those offices which may have eventually become the Britannic Insurance Co.
Broad_St_Corner.JPG
 
It's almost as though the Victorians had no clear idea of when to stop adding features to a piece of street furniture!!! "Nah, not finished yet, needs a few more lamps" .... "definitly could do with a few more scrolls ..." " I know let's add a clowns hat ... " and for good measure we gotta put a spiky thing on top " Viv.
 
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The bridge over the River Tame on Aldridge Road once had lamps on top of pedestals at each corner. A nice addition to a well designed bridge. It's surprising that so much thought was put into the design of this bridge. (And the effort has had a spin off in protecting the older 'zig-zag' bridge alongside). Viv.

image.jpeg
 
Vivienne14 said:
The bridge over the River Tame on Aldridge Road once had lamps on top of pedestals at each corner. A nice addition to a well designed bridge. It's surprising that so much thought was put into the design of this bridge. (And the effort has had a spin off in protecting the older 'zig-zag' bridge alongside). Viv.

View attachment 103179[/QUOTE] There were also lamps on the Stratford Road bridge over the River Cole at Springfield/Sparkhill in around 1914-1920 and probably later. See thread "Bridges over the River Cole" #4. Dave
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