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Thanks Lyn I love looking at old maps. Show me a Victorian map of Brum and I could imagine walking the streets without getting lost. I know what the old buildings look like, and I could almost imagine dropping in on my gt gt grandfather in Cheapside, for example. But this one takes us back...

I've dug out a 1731 map of the area; from the name of the road "Brickhill Rd" it seems likely that they were brick kilns. Could the side of the hill have been excavated to make bricks? And after Bradford St was built the houses were constructed in the knowledge that the road level was going...

Yes! But why didn't they build the houses at road level - surely that would have been easier than raising the road by 1 to 2 feet over the next 200 years! If you look on the other side of the road the buildings there are raised too. The more I look at that drawing, the stranger it seems. I...

Phyllis Nicklin took a photo from almost the same spot in the 1960's; I've magnified and stretched the middle bit to show the white buildings more clearly. The one at the end had all its windows at that time (so much for my "window tax" theory) and was bare-brick. How curious. Paul

The building next to the car has survived almost intact - although the upper windows have been bricked up (window tax?). I took a picture of this building about 5 years ago and it was unchanged then - I assume it is still there now. Paul

Yes, it is definitely Stockfield Rd., although Stars deleted the picture for some reason. https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=38169&page=9&p=423898#post423898 Stars, please let me know if I should delete the pic I saved on my hard disk. Paul

Imagine the look on their faces if you tried to pay for a meal with £100 worth of 2p coins, lol. But thanks for all the hard work Warren. Paul

Just a thought - weren't a lot of these photos taken as a historical record shortly before the buildings were to be demolished? That is the reason for the chalked location details (e.g. at the back of the court). So this means we are seeing what were amongst the worst properties in the city at...

It could be Highgate St. But after I zoomed in I thought it looked more like 11 Ct, Rolfe St! Could these pics be Smethwick? Paul

No, there are lots of episodes - look at the links on the right side of the YouTube screen. Paul

Someone has uploaded this series (not sure if every episode) to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLS7mCvz3fk Well worth a look if you are interested in 1970's Birmingham. Paul

Yes, as soon as I saw the picture I thought "that's Stockfield Exchange", it was a very interesting second hand shop in Stockfield Rd in the 1970's. You never quite knew what you might find inside. If you look on the shop on the far left it seems to say "Stockfield Rd Stores" on the window...

Well I took it to mean 30 High St, Birmingham, and 77 Snow Hill, London! Paul

If you look on the right side of the screen, there is a link for downloading it to PDF. Regards Paul

What a good idea! Here's my attempt, I've tried to tint it a bit as well:

It was excellent, I watched it on iplayer last year. It is being repeated on BBC2 tonight (12th August 2011) - I will certainly be watching it again. Trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6BAoo8hmlU Paul

That's a very evocative picture Lyn - haven't seen it before. It is worth looking at Phyllis Nicklin's photos too - she took several of Bradford St. https://www.pbase.com/beppuu/pnicklin Regards Paul

Well spotted John! From the 1945 phone directory, it was indeed Essor Foundry: I've looked a few years either side of 1945, but the only address given for Essor in 1940 and 1950 for example is the one in Bishop St. So my guess is that Essor owned it for a few years, but as it was not...

Thank you Mike, that is fascinating! So what appeared from the road to be a modest little house was actually quite a large and locally important firm for 150 years. Here is an aerial photo from Google - luckily, showing the area before the bulldozers came - and all the buildings shown in...

I am very happy that I have been able to post pictures of interest to several people. I wonder, would anyone with a stack of Kellys/PO directories be able to track the building through the years? I would like to know what it was used for in the mid 1800's for example, and what the two recent...