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Witton Isolation Hospital burnt down in 1967

An aerial view dated 1926. Part of the Isolation Hospital on the left and Weycroft Road is across the view from top right towards the hospital. The College Road still a single carriageway. The Mayfair Cinema was not yet built but work would soon start for an opening in 1931.
Screenshot (458).jpg

A similar view today and that white block of four houses on the corner of Weycroft Road and College Road shows in the 1926 view.
2019.jpg
 
It's really strange I live so local to where the Mayfair Cinema and the isolation hospital were. However, although I can recall the cinema slightly it was more the walk along the passage way gully that separated the building.
Back then I was lucky if my Mother let me travel around the block lol
So the gully.was kind of creepy to me.
 
Thats correct, the gully to the right of the Mayfair was called Mayfair Passage. I used to go there every Saturday for the 6d matinee. 1 1/2d on the 28 Bus from Short Heath. 6d for a jubbly from the shop next door to the left. 1 1/2d (penny halfpenny) on the 28 back home. that was my 1-3d pocket money spent.
 
keithdawson said:
In 1967, I was at Greenholm Primary School. We all watched the smoke.
Later, I went to Marsh Hill boys' (Grammar, Technical School). It became just Marsh Hill School when I was in the 4th Year. The Staff Room was in the old boys' school (South building). The Head was in the old girls' school (North building). I can't remember who was in the old boys' school Head's Study, Deputy Head, I think. When it became Josiah Mason College, a link was built between "what used to be the two chemistry labs". At that point, the field behind the two schools was lost, as the access between the two schools no longer existed. There was no way to get to the field behind. Since Josiah Mason College closed, both of our schools have been demolished - sad.
Click to expand...
 
oldMohawk said:
An aerial view dated 1926. Part of the Isolation Hospital on the left and Weycroft Road is across the view from top right towards the hospital. The College Road still a single carriageway. The Mayfair Cinema was not yet built but work would soon start for an opening in 1931.
View attachment 139142

A similar view today and that white block of four houses on the corner of Weycroft Road and College Road shows in the 1926 view.
View attachment 139143
Click to expand...

The picture by OldM is of the upper hospital shown in Mike’s map in post 12.

Witton Isolation Hospital burnt down in 1967

https://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=44375
birminghamhistory.co.uk birminghamhistory.co.uk

When this hospital was burnt in 1967 one report stated that the hospital was 60 years old, and therefore would have been built around 1907. However the two hospitals are shown on the 1904 0S Map (revised 1901), and neither exist on the 1884 published map. Wikipedia describes Witton Isolation Hospital as the Upper hospital being built in 1884.

Post 28 shows that the lower hospital was opened in 1885, and might alter the date given by Bill Dargue...

“Hawthorn School has an interesting origin. Pending the building of Hastings Road Council School, it first opened in 1925 as Perry Common Temporary Council School and was held in the buildings of the former isolation hospital at the corner of Hawthorn Road and College Road. The hospital had been built by the West Bromwich Guardians of the Poor in this remote spot following a number of epidemics during the early 1890s. When the various blocks at Hastings Road, later Perry Common Primary School, were built and opened in turn by 1926, this school was reorganised and in 1935 was renamed Hawthorn Road County Primary School.”

According to Bill part of the lower hospital was closed as early as 1925, and there is a reference in May 1928 of a memorial from Perry Common residents which complained of rats at the temporary infant school. The building had been in use for 3 years. The rest of the site would have disappeared around 1933 when the Library and Fire Station were built. In January 1909 there was a proposal to buy one acre of land and buildings, situate at Upper Witton, on the opposite side of the road to the Council's Scarlet Fever Hospital.
 
Looking towards Perry Common in 1938. The Mayfair Cinema has been built and is shaded light brown. The hospital area is shaded light green. Mayfair Passage can be seen and a field (possibly enclosed) is between it and the hospital.
College Road, Hawthorn Road, and Warren Farm Road labelled. A large building lower left by the oval in Warren Farm Road looks like Kingstanding Swimming Baths since demolished.
1PerryCommon1938.jpg
 
keithdawson said:
In 1967, I was at Greenholm Primary School. We all watched the smoke.
Later, I went to Marsh Hill boys' (Grammar, Technical School). It became just Marsh Hill School when I was in the 4th Year. The Staff Room was in the old boys' school (South building). The Head was in the old girls' school (North building). I can't remember who was in the old boys' school Head's Study, Deputy Head, I think. When it became Josiah Mason College, a link was built between "what used to be the two chemistry labs". At that point, the field behind the two schools was lost, as the access between the two schools no longer existed. There was no way to get to the field behind. Since Josiah Mason College closed, both of our schools have been demolished - sad.
Click to expand...
I remember the news of the day (I can't remember whether it was Midlands Today or ATV today - as it was then), "Usually, firemen usually put fires out but, today, they started one."
 
Just looking through this old thread and recalled that sometime between Sept 1961 and 1963 my exhusband was working as a bus conductor on the 51 and 52 buses to Perry Barr/Great Barr, A man walked out of the isolation hospital in Witton and was last seen boarding one of these buses, anyone travelling on either route and not already innoculated for smallpox was advised to have the injection, that included my husband, and his colleagues. I had the jab as a precaution.
 
A Sparks said:
I have a memory of what I thought was the TB hospital being burnt down purposely as TB had more or less been eradicated then - I was at Marsh Hill Girls senior school and we could see the smoke from the playing field behind the school.
I can't remember what year that would have been but very likely 1967 - would that have been the place of this thread title?
Click to expand...
At that time I worked for a company called FOSECO INTERNATIONAL - in Long Acre Nechells. Their Tamworth factory made foundry chemicals, including exothermic mixtures, and made variants of these for use in Foot and Mouth outbreaks for incinerating cattle carcases.
Foseco produced quite a few tons of these materials, which burn at very high temperatures, that were used to burn down the hospital, and to generate temperatures guaranteed to kill any lingering germs!
 
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