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Villa Street Lozells

Astoness

TRUE BRUMMIE MODERATOR
Staff member
hi all. i used to live in villa street hockley between 1958 till 1971 and i am desprately looking for any photos of the old vine pub or photos of the houses ect in villa street. can anyone out there help.
 
HI all. linda harrington here. i used to live at 118 villa street 1958 to 1972. what happy memories they were. next door lived the brady family and on the other side was the millers. carol miller was a mate of mine. further up the road was the beech family. mr beech was the local chimney sweep. other neighbours i recall are moorehouse. stone. milligan. joan doyle. linda wilcox. her mom and dad ran the shop 4 doors down. then of course there was the vine pub. dad taught me to play darts there. he used to play for the sports argus and was the local window cleaner. i am still searching for a photo of the vine pub if anyone can help. also any photos of the street and its houses. i could go on forever chatting about the old end so i will stop now. would love to hear from anyone i have mentioned or anyone who remembers me and my family.
 
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Hello

Sorry, can't help you with your search. Was hoping you could help me.

My great grandmother was widowed in 1910 in Aston, and in 1915 re-married a Samuel Beech. Her 11 or so children (previously Jackson) became Beech.

In 1958 her sons would have been between 50 an 60. I wondered if this tied in with your 'mr beech the local chimney sweep' ?. The only likely names I have are Leonard (wife Edie) and Albert (wife Winifred).

Thanks, and good luck with your search.

Nicky
 
villa street.

Hi nicky. i think i may be able to help you. i have a copy of the 1956 kellys directory. have had a look and in 1956 the chimney sweep was edwin beech. he lived at the back of number 126 villa street. i remember them very well. you used to have to go down a very long entry and they lived at the end of it on the left. it was very scary in the dark i can tell you. i think edwin had about five children. the ones i can remember and used to hang about with were colin.gillian and martin. my brother has bumped into a couple of them over the years. are you trying to trace them.
 
Thanks for your help.

The person I was interested in was the father, the chimney sweep. I wondered if he was my Granch's brother.

My Granch was Sidney Beech, born in Aston 1907 (originally born a Jackson, but his mum married a Beech after she was widowed). He had about 10 brothers & sisters and Edwin may have been one of them - I don't suppose Beech was a very common name?.

If he was, then colin, gillian and martin would have been my mum's cousins. She's 64, so I guess they would be about the same?. She never met any of her Brummie family.

If you do ever run into them, would be great to know if they had an uncle sidney that moved to hereford with midland red in the 30's, or their grandparents were Elizabeth & Samuel.

Will keep searching for clues & let you know anyone that turns up that you might recognise.

Thanks very much

Nicky
 
villa street

hi all. just thought of a couple more mates i used to hang around with when i lived in villa street. they are robin lyndon. he lived in burberry st and steve or steven bull. he lived at the top of church st. if i remember correctly steve was a relative of the moorehouses. also steven stone and steven rivers. what a lot of stevens. would love to get in touch.
 
Hi, I know this post is a bit out of date now, but I wonder if you remember my grandparents who lived at No 132 Villa St.Mr and Mrs Ernest Smith?
 
hi mary. sorry i cant recall your grandparents at the moment. i lived at num 118. what years were they there. if its between 58 and 72 i bet mom and dad would remember them. what was your nans first name and i will ask them. this map of villa st shows num 132. the first house(well it was the veg shop actually) on the right hand corner of nursery road and villa st was num 98 so if you work up the street in twos you will see where your nan and grandads house was. i am also posting for you a pic of villa street taken from nursery road i would say in the early 1900s. hope you find these of interest. wales.
 
this is a pic looking up villa st from nursery road. i love this one. wales.
 

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:love: That's so kind of you. Thanks. Here is a picture of my Nan and Grandad. My Grandad's Dad had lived in Villa Street before him, at no 7 Garibaldi Place. So when they married in about 1915, he just moved further up the street. They had 4 children, all of whom died in their 50's except my Aunt Queenie, who I'm visiting next month in Weymouth. She married from Villa Street in 1953. Grandad used to grow big white daisies in his small front garden. He had a large back garden with chickens. Next door lived someone called Freda, and as you went down the entry to the toilet her pet goose used to call out her name all the time - he'd been bought for Christmas but lived in her back garden for many years.

I know Nan and Grandad used to drink in the Vine. Grandad died in '64 and Nan remarried in her 70's! A man called Danks, but she died in 1969. When the houses were being demolished I was watching outside no 132 and a woman came up and asked if I was a Smith. I'm afraid I'm looking even more like my grandmother now. I think she may have been a bit of a dragon sometimes, but he was lovely. My Father was visiting when courting my mom one day and a woman neighbour came in after my Nan with a knife. My grandad got between them and kept saying "state your case, state your case" :rolleyes: I don't think it was very serious. My Dad thought it hilarious.

Sorry to rattle on. Hope this works out. First time I've attached a photo.
The photo of Villa Street was lovely. I don't remember the trees though.
Best regards

Maryd
 
hi mary. well done with the pic. took me ages to get to grips with posting them lol. nice photo of your nan an grandad. i will show it to mom and dad they must remember them as we were only a few door down from them. dad used to play darts for the vine. i am still looking for a pic of that pub. the only one i have is taken inside with customers on the last day of trading. i dont know if you are interesed but i have posted a lot of pics of nursery road and villa st on the site. have you seen them yet. they were taken in the 50s 60s and 70s if memory serves me right. lyn:)ps i wonder where garabaldi place was. from what you said it was at the top half of villa st. dont forget it was cut in 2 halves by nursery road.
 
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thanks for that mike. the way i read marys post garibaldi place was in villa street. no doubt she will put me right when she reads this. cheers wales,:)
 
Hi both,
Yes, according to my g.g. grandad's death certificate he lived at either 7 Garibaldi Place Villa Street, or Garibaldi Place, 7 Villa St..(The seven is sort of by the side, squeezed in). No I didn't remember the Street was split in two. I only remember the very top where it joined Villa Cross I think and the bottom, as my aunt, one of their daughters, lived in a back to back in Nursery Road in the early -mid-50's.

I'm afraid I needed my husband's help to attach the photo. I'll be fine if I write down the instructions..:headhit:pathetic...

I've seen one or 2 of the photos and I'll check out the rest, thanks so much for posting them. I don't think my Grandad would have played darts, as he lost his right index finger when a huge stamp came down on it that was for forming spoons.......

Maryx
 
7 Villa st would be very close to Bridge st west on the west side of the road.Kellys didn't list anyone in it, just position, so presumably they assumed it came under bridge st west and put it there
 
mike as i thought there was never any houses on the west side of villa st until after it crossed farm st and ive only just realised that villa st was actually in 3 parts not 2. id forgotton that as well as nursery road cutting accross it farm st did too. anyway heres a pic of farm st school running from the corner of bridge st west. dont think ive put this one on before so maybe it will bring back some memories it does for me. lyn
 
hi mike. ive got a feeling that the house numbers on the west side didnt start as low as number 7. dads nearly 80 now and as a young boy moved from hunters road to no 51 villa street to the maisionettes which are still there. i think they may have started round about the 30 somethings to meet the same numbers on the opposite side of the road. having taken a memory lane trip down there many times i cant see as there is enough space from the corner of farm street for that many houses to be there. but as usual i stand to be corrected. will have a word with dad see what he may know. i would like to find out now as its got me wondering. anyway this is a pic of the lowest number i have on the west side. the crown pub is just out of shot on the corner of nursery road. lyn
 
In modern times I think you're right. Certainly in 1950 and 1964 the lowest odd no is 75. In 1912 it was 35. On looking back to 1876, 1,3,5 were called shirley villas ands no 7 was villa cottage, but , on thinking about it, these were before the school was there, and were probably on the site of the school, which probably took up at least a dozen houses, and a dozen would take you to 23. In fact after the school was built , between 1880 and 1884, no number lower than 37 appears on that side of the road.
Incidentally, the "wrong" vine photo. was it one we've already seen or a new one from somewhere else?
Mike
 
hi mike. the lowest odd you speak about is for a business i take. as i said in the 30s dad lived at number 51 villa st. o please dont mention the vine. someone said they had it but it turns out as has happened before its another vine not the one that was demolished in 1978 that was in villa st. ive seen many vine pics on the site but not the one i am after. it must be somewhere. i would love to get a map of villa st before the school was built. hang on a min what year did mary say her relatives lived at maybe num 7 cos if its after the school was built surely it cant have been villa st and like you have pointed out there was a garibaldi in bridge st west. lyn:)
 
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hi mike. we need the date of marys gt grandads death cert. im not very good at this but if the date is before when farm st school was built num 7 may well have been the very 1st on the corner of bridge st west and villa (it may have been an error on the cert to put villa st as it may have been bridge st west where you have located a garibaldi place. but looking back on marys post i get the impression she it talking 1915. hope she gets back to us lyn:)
 
Lynn
First I made two errors. The school was built between 1873 and 1876. and second the numbers 1, 3 etc were at the other end of vulla st. I got confused by the renumbering. Must be staying up too late!. Also, unfortunately, garibaldi place first is mentioned in 1888 at 50 bridge st west ( in the list of names of streets at the beginning). going to bridge st west, in the same volume (to make sure I'm not getting mixed up by the numbering) n o 50 is definitely on the south side of the road, between, guest st and great king st. Can't see it being an easy mistake to make if its on the other side of the road to where villa st meets b.s.w.
mike
 
Hello,

Flippin Eck, what did I start? :biggrin: The date on my g. grandad's death certificate is 30th September 1900. His name was Charles Surrender Smith (I know, I know - no idea why the funny middle name). "ladylinda" has kindly found a possible marriage date for him and Maria Mees in 1881. Of course I have no idea if they moved in to Garibaldi Place that early. I would have to look them up in the 1891 census and I can't at the moment as I'm not signed up yet. Going to have another go soon though.

His son, my grandad would have lived there until he married. I've just made another effort to find the marriage date and found that it was in the first quarter of 1914, so 1915 was not a bad guess. That's when they moved into no. 132 Villa Street, and that would have been just before he went off to war then.

Hope this helps.

Maryx
 
No lynn, I don't even come from birmingham originally, but lived there for 11 years , still have friends there and got interesated in the history of the city after going on a evening course (none of those any more, or at least not in anything not related to a job) . The course was led by Jennifer Tann. who inspred the interest of a lot of us.
mike
 
lol mary. its not unusual for us on this site to try to unravel things and come to a good conclusion. not only do we have fun doing it but we learn something every day. as you can tell me and mike are trying to find out if there was a garibaldi place in villa st as that is a possable address you have for your gt grandfather. mike has only as yet found one in bridge st west. if he lived there in 1915 ish it would make it impossable to have been villa st as the 1st part of the west side would have been taken up by farm st school which was built way before then. its a good one this and should keep us busy for a while. mike so glad you took up your history interest as i have learnt a lot from your posts. lyn:)
 
Hi,

I'm only a bit concerned that I recognise this is a site about pubs, and if it is thought my family stuff needs moving, that's fine. I'm sure not everybody's also interested in my poor old g grandad.

By the way, Lyn, when you ask your parents whether they knew my grandparents you might say that they had a television set really early. I don't know, maybe everyone used to pile in to watch. Knowing my Nan she would have charged (only joking, Nan). She liked to watch the horseracing particularly. Used to bet on Lester Piggot a lot.

Could you let me know where you will be posting the answer? Not that's it's earth shatteringly important that they were remembered, but somehow it's nice to know.

Thanks very much

Mary :smile2:
 
hi mary. i know this started as a pub thread but dont worry about us going off in another direction it happens all the time. one thing leads to another lol so for now we will stay here. glad you mentioned the horse racing as dad has always been a betting man. hardly missed at day since he was very young and hes nearly 80 now and still has a flutter. but his motto through life has allways been never gamble more than you can afford to lose. so we have the vine and the horses in common now. i will be very surprised if he dont remember your nan and grandad. will ask mom as well. must find out about this garibali place though its bugging me now. lyn ps mary i will ask for an 1891 census look up for you. i also need to put some credit on the genes reunite site
 
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Hi,

I think it was around the 1891 mark. He died in Dec 1964 and I think the gravestone says he was 73.

Thanks v much.

Mary
 
mary . i think we are getting somewhere. can you go to the census look ups and click on the 1891 look up. fraid i asked for your gt grandad at first instead of ernest. anyway read all the posts and let me know if this is your family. i beleive it is and if so because of the num 7 you hve on the death cert it has mislead us into looking at the bottom end of villa street. but it looks like the address is 7 back of 170. let me know what you think. lyn
 
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