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Birchfield Road Perry Barr

as a regular tram user in the 40's and 50's I have never seen a tram stop like that. Most tram stops, apart from the termini were simply oblong metal signs attachéd to the cable support pole saying TRAM STOP. Eric
 
A view of the Perry Barr Expressway being built in 1968. I'm amazed that quite a few of the Victorian buildings still exist at that end of Birchfield Road especially given the size of the flyover.

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Trinity Church is top left in both photos. The road going off to the right (bottom, centre) is Haughton Road. Those houses are still there! It's sometimes very surprising what you can find even today. Viv.
 
brumgum said:
Just looked, not sure what it is..
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and neither is the person who stated that it is a Mosque in an earlier post.
Pssscht...
I really hope that everyone using this site appreciates the value of accuracy: of the past, in the present and for the future.
 
Perhaps a little respect would not go amiss. If you know what it is then we would welcome your view.

Thank you.




BernardR

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4
 
robh said:
and neither is the person who stated that it is a Mosque in an earlier post.
Pssscht...
I really hope that everyone using this site appreciates the value of accuracy: of the past, in the present and for the future.
Click to expand...
There's a strong possibility that it may have been a Public House once.
 
And you are right Brumgum. Here's an extract from the digital Handsworth site showing the Bull on the corner of Fentham Road. Viv.


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thank you from me too bernard..as a birmingham history forum we are always interested in what happens to our buidings when they are de funked...thats what we do and we can only go on the information found during our research and like i said earlier any member of this forum is more than welcome to correct us if we are wrong so that we can correct our findings if needed

lyn
 
I lived at 4/65 Birchfield road in the 50s,it was at the other end near 6 Ways between Fentham Road and Mansfield Road anyone remember the Dance Hall over the road in Chain Walk? Went to Albert Road primary school,which is where Ozzy Osbourne went was there from 1950 to 1956 Miss Teague was the headmistress,can remember a boy called Kynaston Leach,passed the old 11 plus and went to Handsworth Grammar School,was shocked to have friends who lived in houses with bathrooms and inside toilets!!!!
 
The structures to the left of the first photo were discussed in posts #297-300. I've now found another view which shows them to be gate posts, and my, they were big and solid with a very pointy cap on top. The lamppost is rather nice and elegant too. So Oldmohawk and Shortie, your theory that they were gate posts was right. Viv.

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Vivienne14 said:
A view of the Perry Barr Expressway being built in 1968. I'm amazed that quite a few of the Victorian buildings still exist at that end of Birchfield Road especially given the size of the flyover.
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Hi Viv - The houses you mention in #302 can be seen very clearly in the c1920 high res image on britainfromabove. Also in the same image there is an interesting view of Canterbury Road school standing in a white area which I presume is ashphalted. Although I have the hi res image in my laptop I can't upload it here because of the terms and conditions of britainfromabove, but if signed in, the pins can be hidden to see the expanded hi res image via the link below
https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw001117?search=birchfield&ref=8
Phil
 
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It's after 1953 because the trams have gone, Six Ways looking towards Birchfield Road, and that that white car on the right, anyone know what make is it ?
scan0007-65B15D.jpg
 
The car looks like a stretched version of a rear engined Fiat 600 which would have been about in the mid to late sixties.
 
Thanks Nick you are right, I've had a quick look on Google to confirm.
Just looking at Six Ways, I'm trying to remember how we drove over it with no traffic lights and no mini islands.
 
Viv - I had never seen such pointy caps on a gate post before, they are really nice to be honest. the only ones I had seen were just plain but went into a point without the extended bit. Perhaps it would depend more on income than taste, which variety one chose to have outside one's obviously very large house.
 
oldMohawk said:
Hi Viv - The houses you mention in #302 can be seen very clearly in the c1920 high res image on britainfromabove. Also in the same image there is an interesting view of Canterbury Road school ........
https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw001117?search=birchfield&ref=8
Phil
Click to expand...

Thanks Phil. Just had a look. The Britain from Above view is dated 1920, so both sides of the road were still intact at that time. And I think even the shops (1930s?) near to the Odeon ( in fact the Odeon itself) wouldn't have been built at that time. It certainly looked like a leafy suburb when my family lived there.

Yes Shortie those caps on the pillars are 'right fancy' as my mum would say. Looks like they were intended to make a statement. Viv
 
oldMohawk said:
It's after 1953 because the trams have gone, Six Ways looking towards Birchfield Road, and that that white car on the right, anyone know what make is it ?
scan0007-65B15D.jpg
Click to expand...

i'm almost sure its a Fiat Multipla, Mohawk. Looks like what we used to call in the motor trade in the 1970s a 'brannnie' (ie brand new from the showroom) . It was a front-wheel drive rear engine thing
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I worked for FIAT trucks for a few years in the Brimingham area in the 1970s. We were relieved not to have the model as part of the glossy 'whole FIAT Family' brochure although it was still in production in Italy..
 
Hi Richie - Yes, I notice in your pic the front wheel arch is higher than the back wheel arch, and a similar difference shows in the old pic, which suggests the car is going towards Six Ways when I thought it was going away. What a strange car - probably designed by a committee !
oldmohawk
 
Perhaps it was designed by someone who used to design trams with a drivers cab at each end
 
Definitely a Fiat 600 Multipla, it had 3 rows of seats and a rear engine, a sort of 1950's mini people carrier, never seen one in the road in the UK. I have a Triang "Spot On" model/toy of one from the 1960's sat in a box in the loft. I lived at 14 Birchfield Rd, just down the road from the bank until I was five years old, we moved to a new flat in Castle Bromwich from there in November 1956
 
Birchfield Road dance school. ( Enid Goodwins ).
Enid Goodwins dance school was a delight for many Birmingham people. Enid was the rather stern ' principle'. Her dance
partner and assistant was Charles. One of her other dance assistants was Ethel. On the ' door ' was George, who would check your shoes on entering and take your entrance fee. Enid before owning the Birchfield school used to hire the upstairs room at the Co-op on the Hawthorne Road, Kingstanding to deliver her dance lessons.
Back at Birchfield, on every occasion Enid would begin her dance night with a general dance and the record she would always play for this was " Your dancing on my heart " a boring quick-step by Victor Silvester.
She helped many of her pupils to attain their dance medals and others she groomed for dance competitions . I believe there was one ' hick-up ' during her Birchfieid ownership and that was when she decided to enlarge the downstairs ballroom area and had enlisted the help of volunteers from her school to do the job. During the process of removing one of
the partition walls everyone had the shock of seeing the above ceiling beginning to drop and sag. Fast props had to be put in and the professionals had to take over.
I believe Enid and Charles later became man and wife and later still Enid sold her Birchfield Road School and moved a short distance to set up a new school.
 
Birchfield Road dance school. ( Enid Goodwins ).
Enid Goodwins dance school was a delight for many Birmingham people. Enid was the rather stern ' principle'. Her dance
partner and assistant was Charles. One of her other dance assistants was Ethel. On the ' door ' was George, who would check your shoes on entering and take your entrance fee. Enid before owning the Birchfield school used to hire the upstairs room at the Co-op on the Hawthorne Road, Kingstanding to deliver her dance lessons.
Back at Birchfield, on every occasion Enid would begin her dance night with a general dance and the record she would always play for this was " Your dancing on my heart " a boring quick-step by Victor Silvester.
She helped many of her pupils to attain their dance medals and others she groomed for dance competitions . I believe there was one ' hick-up ' during her Birchfieid ownership and that was when she decided to enlarge the downstairs ballroom area and had enlisted the help of volunteers from her school to do the job. During the process of removing one of
the partition walls everyone had the shock of seeing the above ceiling beginning to drop and sag. Fast props had to be put in and the professionals had to take over.
I believe Enid and Charles later became man and wife and later still Enid sold her Birchfield Road School and moved a short distance to set up a new school.
 
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