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The Barrel Soho Road..

Astoness

Astoness

TRUE BRUMMIE MODERATOR
Staff member
hi folks since researching my family history i have found many pubs that one of my ancestors charles bradnock owned or run but alas all long since gone now he ran it from about 1901 to 1913.......its just up from ninevah road on the soho road...to find the building still standing would have been great but to find it not only standing..still called the barrel and still trading was amazing..to the.....here are a couple of pics of the back of the pub..the buildings to the left and right have been added on and a bit directly in front...the rest is all original brickwork and wooden window frames...absolutely delighted...i will be taking pics of the front of the pub when soho road is a bit quieter...

lyn

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this range is in the front room of the pub...no way of knowing really how long it has been there..new brick work around it...

pubandgtkingstpic008.jpg


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Hi Lyn


Put this one with your collection, I have another one a little later than this one if you want it. It shows the frontage rendered and painted.

Phil
 

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oh wow phil thats a fantastic pic of the pub..thank you and yes i wouldnt mind seeing the other one you have please...

lyn
 
phil do you have any idea when that pic was taken...
lyn
 
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Lyn

This is the second photo, it looks later than the 1945 one.

Phil
 

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Glad to hear the Barrel is still going strong!
I worked in a shop a couple of doors away in 66/67 (doesn't exist now).
 
smashing phil..thanks so much..i will be having a print out of the c 1945 pic and will frame it...

lyn
 
well i am chuffed to bit big fella....and so grateful to phil for the earlier pic of it..

:encouragement:lyn
 
What a great photo of 'The Barrel'. When I was a kid in Handsworth (early 50's) my family, and theirs before them always drank in the Barrel. I remember an August Bank Holiday Monday night, maybe 1954ish. My uncle Alf got involved in a punch up outside the pub and had to walk home down Grove Lane with his best shirt hanging off his back! It was ripped to shreds!
Laurie
 
There used to be a bookies on the right down the alleyway at the side of the Barrel,bets where posted in a letter box in the house door.
 
Hello
My Mom Margaret worked at the Barrel in the late 1960's (as you do...) - before working at the chemist. I was in Handsworth a couple of months back myself and I was surprised it was still there, and still looked the same at the front. She worked at the Frighted Horse also (prior) round about 1962. That pub has gone now? Boarded up on Google Street view I noticed today (circa 2008).
 
The bookie was Joe Smith. His pitch, as you say, was in Louise Terrace, down the side of the Barrel. his runner, or 'the tekker' as they called him, was Joe Dayus. his wife was Kathleen Dayus who wrote those amazing books in the late 80's.
 
Thats interesting Laurie,I can also picture the letter box in the door Dad would put his bet through I suppose if the runner (or has you say the tekker, never heard that one )was not there,trying to remember,he always had a bet on a Saturday, which started with 3 tanner cross doubles, a "rollup"then I cannot remember the rest,a treble I think but don't know how that worked.
 
hi phil
tha secnd pics must be the eighties because inthe sixties and seventys that dawb painting of vanderlizam was not there then;
and thats where i used to finish my milk round just across the rd out side the red lion every saturday afternoon around five oclock
when i delivred milk to almost every house and shop around that quarter of handsworth
and it was midland counties dairy moland street costa green in those days and the horse tough in the middle of the rd if any body
recalls the old costa green ; and the midlands dairyies best wishes astonian ;;
 
Hello Alan. if your Dad picked 3 horses then the permutation would work out at 3 doubles and the treble. If he picked 4 horses then he'd have 6 doubles, 4 trebles and the all important 'roll up'. All the horses have to do is win! And then it's drinks all round!
Like you, I can picture the letter box on Louise Terrace. As you turned in to the little cottages on the right it was on your immediate right. it all seemed so seedy but so exciting as it was of course illegal. When the betting became legal in 1961 Joe Smith and his brother Jim opened up a shop on the other side of Soho Road, next door to the National Westminster bank. It had a proper counter and the 'blower' for race by race results but it somehow lacked whatever the letter box had!
 
Laurie said:
Hello Alan. if your Dad picked 3 horses then the permutation would work out at 3 doubles and the treble. If he picked 4 horses then he'd have 6 doubles, 4 trebles and the all important 'roll up'. All the horses have to do is win! And then it's drinks all round!
Like you, I can picture the letter box on Louise Terrace. As you turned in to the little cottages on the right it was on your immediate right. it all seemed so seedy but so exciting as it was of course illegal. When the betting became legal in 1961 Joe Smith and his brother Jim opened up a shop on the other side of Soho Road, next door to the National Westminster bank. It had a proper counter and the 'blower' for race by race results but it somehow lacked whatever the letter box had!
Click to expand...
Thanks Laurie,Sorry for the delay in replying,what sticks in my mind is (3 tanner X doubles) so I guess the rollup must have happened when he was flush,and could afford another horse I have been trying to remember his non de plume is that the right word ?
 
Hello Alan. Yeah, every punter had to write his so called non de plume on the bottom of the bet. A more popular term for it was 'monica'. If you hadn't put your stage name on the slip the bookie would tell you to 'Stick your monica on!'
Incidentally my great grandmother lived in one of the cottages by Joe Smith's. She lived to be 96 and she'd have a bet every day with Joe and a drink in the Barrel every night up to more or less the very end of her days.
 
Just saw on the BBC Birmingham news website that the Barrel pub has been closed down after Police described it as a haven for drug dealers.

I wanted to look at the article but I always have problems trying to open links to the Birmingham Mail website - it takes ages, if at all!!
 
hi a sparks..thanks for the info..it does not surprise me one little bit as when i popped in there last may it was all too evident what was going on...to be perfectly honest i was dubious about going in there in the first place but then i got to thinking..hey my rellies ran this pub from 1901 to 1913 so i shall go in...glad i did now if closure is imminent or has already been closed
thanks again for the info..

lyn
 
I feel sort of sorry in a way as I used to work very near the Barrel in 67/68.
I think the then landlord used to come into the shop sometimes to buy groceries.

I can't remember if I ever went in the pub for a drink, possibly once or twice (though I was under 18 then!), but I have no recollection of what it looked like inside.
 
for those interested in the barrel it is now a lloyds chemist...wonder what my ancestors would have thought of that..

lyn
 
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