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I worked in Dawson and Baker Building at various times. I remember students and staff abseiling down the end wall of Baker. The Wellhead Tavern had some extraordinary characters including folksinging from time to time. I hope the Wellhead Tavern will return. Lots of memorable times. Here's a...

Taylor and Challen factory in Livery St has an informative thread. https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/threads/taylor-and-challen-past-and-present.4058/page-2

Edgbaston Pool (which I'd wrongly assumed to be a reference to Edgbaston Reservoir) can be accessed from Winterbourne Gardens after paying for admission and is part of the Calthorpe Estate and is managed by the golf club which occupies Edgbaston Hall. There's a wooded site and the pool. The...

Viv, Wikipedia has a photo from Aug 1983 and says it is an abstract relief. Said to be lost. A lot of the postwar art and architecture is going as well as the Victorian and Edwardian losses. Derek

A Happy New Year to everyone!

Good news! Let's hope it stays open. https://www.grapevinebirmingham.com/the-lord-clifden-pub-reopens-its-doors-after-lovingly-restoring-a-birmingham-gem/

Lightwoods House and Shakespeare Gardens have been restored. There's a wide variety of activities, from pilates and yoga to wedding hire and a tea room. https://lightwoodsparkandhouse.co.uk I played in the park as a child and later pushed my mother round Shakespeare Garden in a wheelchair (she...

The Ivy Bush joined the long list of Birmingham closed pubs this last August. It was a landmark in travelling to Ladywood down the Hagley Road. I guess Laver played at Edgbaston Tennis club near the Botanical Gardens. Drank at the Ivy Bush only a few times. In the mid 1990s there was a micro...

Thanks Richard, I was lucky to avoid asthma as a child. So I count my blessings. Derek

I was thinking of installing a wood burning stove, but developed senile asthma as it is delightfully called! So this project is shelved, indeed the neighbours woodburners make me cough and I use an inhaler regularly now. I shall try the poker trick using a camping stove in the garden. Open fires...

Apparently the Regal was renamed the ABC at the end of the 1950s, but I guess everyone would still refer to it as the Regal. Quite a few cinemas were renamed over the years. Not my part of town, Jayell, but I can't place an Odeon in Handsworth.

Absolutely Paul, they were a strong generation and needed to keep the cold out in those damp and draughty houses.

Mom would buy Barley Wine or Old Ale to go into the Christmas Puddings. As I got to be a teenager, I'd sample the bottles. She had an old neighbour from Ladywood who now lived in Winson Green. At Christmas we would buy four bottles of Mackeson to take. The old dear would take the top off, drink...

I wish everyone on BHF a Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year. Thanks to the Mods for keeping order and all contributors who enrich our knowledge of the past.

Henry Green has an informative Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Green He wrote an early autobiography 'Pack My Bag' in 1940. Jeremy Treglown wrote a biography of Green, Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green, Faber, 2000.

Jonathan Green's Dictionary of Slang gives Monkey's Parade from 1879: Monkey’s Parade (n.) used of various urban walks popular with local young people in such London suburbs as Wanstead, Wimbledon, etc. and cities such as Manchester and Dundee but primarily a popular promenade in the East End of...

And in daytime. A section of T. S. Eliot's 'Burnt Norton' is inscribed on the rim of the upper pool: And the pool was filled with water of sunlight, And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly, The surface glittered out of heart of light, And they were behind us, reflected in the pool. Then a cloud...

Victoria Square October 2024 by night.

The Ringway Centre was completed in 1962. Andy Foster in  Birmingham: Pevsner Architectural Guide: 'The best piece of mid-C20 urban design in the city, and the only stretch of the Inner Ring Road built as a boulevard, rather than an urban motorway.'

Hope you had a wonderful birthday, Lyn! Derek