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Birchfield Road Perry Barr

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?
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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
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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]
 
My Nan Emily Maggie Louisa Feasey lived in Birchfield road during the first world war with her family and I would love to know exactly where?.
 
Hi Jean , don't know about during the first world war years but Emily lived in Franchise Street with her parents in 1901 her parents were still living there in
1911, classed as Handsworth 1901 , Perry Barr 1911.
Emily married Arthur Taplin in 1910 and they lived in Cubbington, Leamington in 1911.
 
Thanks for that Alberta. Chris [Sheera] came across something before the Franchise street move. This is what came up Alberta. here are also first world war army service records for frederick feasey who was the brother of emily maggie louisa feasey. at that time the family were living birchfield rd. perry barr. Would this be of any help?.
 
Thanks for posting the photos of the Birchfield Road shops, showing Maison Celeste (what a posh name)! Plus the ones of the library where I spent many happy hours waiting for an Enid Blyton book to be returned so I could borrow it. Most of the books there in the fifties had plain brown leatherette covers.
 
Found this postcard and thought I'd check out on Streetview what's escaped demolition. Well most of those houses in view on the postcard! Not often you can say that. Viv.

sypehy3u.jpg
 
Vivienne14 said:
Found this postcard and thought I'd check out on Streetview what's escaped demolition. Well most of those houses in view on the postcard! Not often you can say that. Viv.

sypehy3u.jpg
Click to expand...
Sad how all the front walls have been removed to allow for dropped kerbs and car parking, I noticed that the house where I lived (dewsbury grove) has had the front garden taken up even though there was a garage and parking space to the rear.
 
Birchfield Road in 1910. Anyone know what the structures are on the left-hand side of the photo (enlarged)? I thought they were columns either side of gates to the properties, but not too sure. They seem to be ironwork or is that just a trick of the camera? Viv.

e6ava7ev.jpg

u7u6emad.jpg
 
The columns seem to support a light coloured canopy like the entrances to some churches. A little further along are similar columns with a canopy possibly enclosing a metal gate. On the the other side of the road in the distance can be seen similar columns which I think are front gates to the large houses on that part of Birchfield Rd which looked quite similar in the 1950s until they built the flyover.
 
I think they are brick pillars with a coping stone on the top - a coping stone that is pointed in the middle and meant only for pillar tops.
 
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