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'Satis' means enough. Latin as in satisfaction. You will have plenty to eat here. :)

The main entrance to Newton Chambers is in Cannon Street and seems very elaborate. [Source CC. Futurilla@Flickr]

The only smoke in our house came from two days of wood fires in the front room. The only days when a fire was lit there. But yes, wonderful Christmases as a child. We make a lighter pudding these days and don't boil it for hours. No rich fruit cake these days. I'm grateful I was taught to be a...

I make it October, so the only Christmas traditions in my childhood home would be the making of puddings and a cake. I helped, or hindered with the stirring using my grandmother's large wooden spoon. It was one of the few times that spices and alcohol were used in our house. We still use my...

A recent article published by the Museum Association: https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2025/10/outcry-after-council-signs-off-plan-to-relocate-walsall-leather-museum/ Looks like a done deal: 'Councillors last week signed off on a 125-year lease of the building to Walsall...

Yes, you can. But I don’t know if there are any staff areas. The main room has an oven or autoclave at the far end.

There are none in the public areas of Gail’s, I seem to remember some in Cannon St. The Dispatch article suggests ‘the lobby.’

Thanks Richard! It would be interesting to hear about earlier times.

I'm too young to have used the New Street Kardomah, but looking at the photos it's clear that the cafe had a corner entrance under the sign, while Gail's has a window there and opens onto New Street. Gail's occupies 42A, while the Kardomah was bigger and had the basement as well. Downstairs...

Some of mosaics which featured in the New Street Kardomah are now upstairs in Charles Tyrwhitt a men's clothes shop. When the building was refurbished some mosaics were moved to the lobby of Newton Chambers in Cannon Street. Link posted up thread, but no harm in repeating it as this certainly is...

An easy slip! But it is interesting that Fuchs was spying so early in the war 1941-1943 when he was in Birmingham and working on the 'Tube Alloys' project. (The British origins of the atomic bomb).

The Dispatch had an article 'Before Gail's, there was the Kardomah' by Ian Francis 4 Jan 2025 with some photos. (BHF gets a credit) https://www.birminghamdispatch.co.uk/before-gails-there-was-kardomah/

Hope you don't mind a correction. His name is Fuchs (fox) and as he was arrested 2nd Feb 1950, he must have met his handler in Birmingham in the early 1940s. She was Ursula Kuczynski (Sonya). Fuchs went to the US at the end of 1943. While he worked at Harwell from 1946 he met his handler in...

Will try to get a better view of the sign when I can to replace this effort.

At the present, there are roadworks on the pavement there. I'll try to get a photo of the ghost sign when I can. Cafe is clear, but Kardomah less so.

Here's the current front of Newton Chambers from New Street.

42A New Street on the corner of Needless Alley was in recent years a shoe shop, Ecco. But now it is a cafe again, Gail's. I'm pleased that the Victorian fireplace described up the thread is insitu.

No idea, I'm afraid Dave. I would think that the NCB housing would continue for a long time after the mine closure. Nationally 170,000 houses were owned up to the miners' strike 1984-5 and after the NCB was ordered to sell the housing stock. I don't know the history of these houses in Hamstead.

Until 1965, Richard. The coal was very deep and it was said to be uneconomic to mine further. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamstead_Colliery

I'm wondering if your lecture was by Brian Griffin, who was born in Birmingham and became a well-known and successful photographer? He died last year unfortunately. I can't find the steels on line, but I think they feature in studies of modernist Birmingham? The facade of the Rep was changed...