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Temple Row

However, to add to that, the 1868 Kellys does list the Birm & Midland Eye Hospital as being at 26 Temple Row. The street was renumbered after, but it is the same number as the Royal hotel, which must be your pub. By the 1884 directory it is still there with the Royal, and its position can then be identified as being next to and to the west of The Northwestern Arcade. but by the 1888 edition it has disappeared, and number 26 is not listed. So it moved to Church St the late 1880s. the c1889 map below shows what I think was its approximate position.

map c 1889 showing earlier approx. positionof eye hospital in Temple Row.jpg
 
The 1888 Kellys lists the Birm & Midland Eye hospital as being in Church St., and the c1889 map shows the "Eye hospital" as being between Barwick st & Edmund St. It is still shown there on the c1905 map, and in the 1904 Kellys. The 1905 maps did not always show all the changes over earlier editions, but i would have thought that something as large as this would have been recorded

You are a scholar and a gent Mike...many thanks....
 
Mike & Dennis

I can't speak for the eye hospital, but the Royal Hotel (Old Royal) was as Mike says on the corner of Temple Row and Bradford Passage. The hotel was certainly big enough to house the Eye Hospital and some years later when it had to make way for the new Rackham's store it also moved to Church St when they moved into the Red Lion and renamed it The Old Royal.
 

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Plaque on the building in Church St confirms the above dates. I can remember being a patient there in 1957ish
 
Two post-WW2 images looking up Temple Row towards St Phillip's churchyard.much WW2 bomb damage. But Rackhams original store seems unscathed. This illustrates what an extensive shop Rackhams had become with its premises covering a large section of Temple Row wrapping around the corner of Bull Street and onto Corporation Street. The new Rackhams Dept Store (rear entrance) would be further up Temple Row.

The old original NW Arcade must have been demolished (left, visible above the parked van) when the new Rackhams was built. Interesting that a new arcade was made to replace the old NW Arcade. For once developers must have noted this useful short-cut from Corporation Street through to Temple Row and the Great Western Arcade on the other side of Temple Row. Viv.

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In 1956 my wife to be worked in the display(window dressing)department in this building of Rackhams.
 
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The developers may have had an obligation to provide shop units for smaller shops displaced by the rebuild of Rackhams in which case reinstating the NW Arcade would have been an ideal place. I remember the arcade being T shaped with a branch going off to Bull Street but that has disappeared.
 
David
Would the other branch have led into Grays. As I remember it (in late 1960s) there was an entrance at about the middle of the arcade,
 
That's right devonjim. Last time I went through the arcade I was trying to place it - it had curved windows and was quite unobtrusive from the store. The arm of the NW Arcade came out below Temple Row and was opposite the side entrance of Rackhams. I'd forgotten about it until now. When did that disappear?
 
Others have answered the question about Greys which was the other side of Temple Row. I don't know when it disappeared. I remember the entrance to some offices (Temple House?) in that arm and also a bookshop specialising in accounting, business and law books.
 
That's right devonjim. Last time I went through the arcade I was trying to place it - it had curved windows and was quite unobtrusive from the store. The arm of the NW Arcade came out below Temple Row and was opposite the side entrance of Rackhams. I'd forgotten about it until now. When did that disappear?

I think the curved windows in the GWA are still there, about half way down the Arcade. I don't know how long ago the actual entrance to Grey's went - I can't remember ever using it.

I worked in Windsor House in the 70's (it's still there but called something different), the NWA was a lot livelier then - more shops open including the first Body Shop to open in Brum.
 
In 1956 my wife to be worked in the display(window dressing)department in this building of Rackhams.
Hi, my cousins Jeanette and Sybil Williams both worked at Rackhams during the 50's maybe your wife would remember them, many thanks.
 
Some lost Photobucket images recovered in this thread.
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Dees..jpg

The Royal Hotel was by all accounts also known as Dee's Hotel at one time. It was a hotel located on Temple Row. It opened in 1772 and was the first establishment in Birmingham to describe itself as a hotel, a new term entering usage around this time to denote a more fashionable and genteel establishment than the more traditional inn.
 
The 1888 Kellys lists the Birm & Midland Eye hospital as being in Church St., and the c1889 map shows the "Eye hospital" as being between Barwick st & Edmund St. It is still shown there on the c1905 map, and in the 1904 Kellys. The 1905 maps did not always show all the changes over earlier editions, but i would have thought that something as large as this would have been recorded
There was a public house on the other side of the road to the Great Western Arcade the entrance to which was immedialty adjacent to the ramp leading to Rackhams loading deck. I can not remember the name of the pub but it was there 1959/60 prior to the demolition to enable a further phase to Rackhams to constructed.
 
Poolpit

You talking about the Old Royal hotel on the corner of Bradford Passage, they moved to the Red Lion in Church Street and renamed it as The Old Royal.

City Temple Row Ye Olde Royal.jpg
 
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