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Birchfield Road Perry Barr

Yes Jean , I lived in Nechells for a while and got off the bus in Perry Barr and walked down Franchise Street to Kynochs every morning I remember the shop but not the name.
 
Look forward to that Di. I still can't think of the ladies name. Mom used to work there too in the canteen as pastry cook.
 
The Electoral Rolls for the 50's/60's will tell us. I will have a look tomorrow, it has been a while since I looked at them and I have to figure it out again.
 
Jean, you'll kick yourself if it was called 'Jean's Woolshop'! My mum knitted a lot and she used to have wool 'set by'. When you were knitting something if it was too expensive to buy the wool all in one go, the shop would keep it for you (I.e. so that the wool would all be the same batch number and exactly the same dye). Viv.
 
Hi Viv was that the other one further up?. Mind you the way my memory is at the moment it could well have been that one?. I only knew the lady by her last name as in those days everyone was called Mr and Mrs or Miss by a child. Thanks so much for that. JEAN JEAN JEAN. xx
 
Sorry Lyn I was pulling your leg! Don't know the name either. But it's interesting that a small suburb could have not one but two wool shops. I expect most women knitted at one time. I also learnt to knit, well you had no choice, it was taught in our school. Wool shops were interesting because they generally sold all sorts of things, not just for knitting. Our local wool shop sold baby clothes (not just knitted ones either), rubber roll-ons in tubes, stockings and ladies 'female' products. I suppose it would have been a female dominated business and women could go there and buy in comfort. Viv.
 
Re the Wool shop near Franchise Street - I won't be speaking to my mother til the weekend but the name Hamptons keeps coming into my mind though I think that might have been a little ladies clothes shop (Lila Hampton?) which was in the same area?

In that block of shops I seem to remember a Fish and Chip shop and a newsagents as well.
 
carolina said:
Was the woolshop Rees?
Click to expand...

Spoke to my mother this afternoon. She remembered Rees but said it was the top end of Perry Barr nearer Canterbury Road.
The only other shop selling wool she can remember during the time she worked at Wilkes (late 40s) was Bills which was not far from them but towards Aston Lane.

She can't remember a wool shop near Franchise Street but said if it was there later in the 50's she wouldn't know as she didn't really go in that area.

The shop Lila Hampton I remembered was a ladies clothes shop on the Crown and Cushion side of Birchfield Road.
 
I also remember Maison Celeste the hairdressers, near the Odeon. My friend's sister worked there and would often cut my hair for free.
 
Am going to phone my cousin in the morning to see if she can remember. She lived next door to Nan as a child but may have been too young to remember.
 
There's an E.W.Rees on this 1951 photo. Maison Celeste is also there between E.W. Rees and Britannic Assurance. Surprisingly this little parade of shops near the Odeon end of Birchfield Road has survived pretty much intact. Viv.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1375878856.378296.jpg
 
Absolutely Jean. The parade can only have been, at most, 20 years old in the first pic. These little parades usually had a good set of shops, despite being on the edge of a much bigger shopping area. All this diversity seems to have virtually disappeared. I loved browsing wool shops, sewing shops etc. to get inspiration, but sadly very few of them around now. Viv.
 
That is true Viv. I still can't remember the owners name of the wool shop close to Franchise street. Jean.
 
The shop "G E Clee" was, I think I'm correct in saying, bought later by Stan Lynn, the former Villa player. He didn't care for kids hanging around outside his shop. Birchfield Road was a really good 'shopping-centre' when I was a kid, but went rapidly downhill in the late sixties and early seventies. Terrible, really, but sadly typical of the general decline in standards. And I'd better shut up now before I get in trouble.

G
 
Hi. I can remember sitting in my pushchair outside "Rees" woolshop whilst my mother was inside. This was circa 1938/9 - just before that trouble with the Germans. I think that memory almost qualifies as a lifetime memory. More seriously though, it was a quality area and it is so depressing to see its descent to the present state. Lets live in our memories! Regards to all. willey
 
In the early 1950's i lived at 296 Birchfield Road, i often wonder where it was and what it looked like...
 
Hi Neville. I think # 296 would have been on the opposite side of the road to the parade of shops in post # 284 as the bank (Lloyds) on the corner is #295. (Big assumption, as the numbers may not run in that way. But if it is on the opposite side, afraid it's now empty land. Wonder if this is where they knocked down the 1960s flats?) Viv.
 
willey said:
Hi. I can remember sitting in my pushchair outside "Rees" woolshop whilst my mother was inside. This was circa 1938/9 - just before that trouble with the Germans. I think that memory almost qualifies as a lifetime memory. More seriously though, it was a quality area and it is so depressing to see its descent to the present state. Lets live in our memories! Regards to all. willey
Click to expand...
It's still a mystery to me why they demolished the lovely old Birchfield Library and never built on the land again, it's just weeds and rubble and has been like it for years..https://www.perrybarrbeyond.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/07%20-%20birchfield%20library.htm
 
From what i can gather it was a big house the census records quite a number of people living there..

QUOTE=Vivienne14;496917]Hi Neville. I think # 296 would have been on the opposite side of the road to the parade of shops in post # 284 as the bank (Lloyds) on the corner is #295. (Big assumption, as the numbers may not run in that way. But if it is on the opposite side, afraid it's now empty land. Wonder if this is where they knocked down the 1960s flats?) Viv.[/QUOTE]
 
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